Addie Schilb was hearing the call all night long.

“Air ball, air ball, air ball.”

After whiffing on a 3-pointer to open up the third quarter against Lake Park, the St. Charles East senior was surrounded by it almost everywhere she went, with or without the ball.

But with the Saints leading by two in a low-scoring affair late in the fourth quarter, she took another chance from 3-point land. And this time, she wasn’t missing.

“I really wanted to make one,” Schilb said. “And it was really nice to have one go in and give us that cushion and help us stay steady. In a low-scoring game, three points is a lot, and having that helped us cool our nerves.”

Schilb’s 3-pointer put her at 13 points, a team-high, as the third-seeded Saints would hold on to take down the second-seeded Lancers for the first time in three games with a 39-32 victory in a Class 4A Bartlett Sectional semifinal.

“Third time’s the charm, right?” Schilb said. “They say it’s hard to beat a good team three times, and we knew that we’d learned a lot from our two losses to them earlier in the season. And our team just had very good composure the entire game.”

East (21-11) advances to face top-seeded Glenbard West (28-4), a 67-60 winner over fourth-seeded St. Charles North, at 7 p.m. Thursday for the sectional championship. The Hilltoppers beat the Saints in their regular season bout, winning 56-41 back on January 27.

“I mean the last two years, we’ve gotten to this point and lost, so it’s an awesome feeling to play for a sectional title,” Saints coach Katie Claussner said. “But we’re not done yet. We’ve got another revenge game coming up. They’re a great team and we’re going to need to show up.”

A lot of the Saints’ success came from the defensive effort shown in the second half of the contest. After allowing 26 points in the first half, the Saints defense locked down, allowing just a singular field goal in the third quarter and two in the final frame.

“We came out in the first half and we did not play to the defensive effort that we wanted to,” Claussner said. “We knew we needed to lock in during halftime. Every possession needed to be ours, no excuses.”

A lot of those struggles for the Saints came from Lancers senior Allison Gogola, who finished the first half with 20 points, including a corner 3-pointer with two seconds left in the first half to give the Lancers a 26-25 lead into the break.

“She 100% kept us in that game,” Lancers coach Bob Reibel said. “We relied on our defense a lot, but you need to score to win and Allie’s carried a big burden on the scoring and did it again. But in the end, everyone has to make plays, and it’s a team thing.”

The way the Hilltoppers secured their spot in their second-straight sectional title game was a bit different leading an offensive-filled battle to the end.

Leading the way for the Hilltoppers was junior Sophia Evans, who came off the bench and dropped 25 points with a commanding presence in the paint and going 7-for-7 from the charity stripe.

“I just knew that I didn’t want it to be our last game,” Evans said. “I just went out there and did what I could.”

When Evans checked into the game for the first time in the first quarter, the Hilltoppers found themselves trailing, a situation they were never in facing the North Stars back on Feb. 3. They ended the first quarter trailing 15-9.

“We knew we just needed to take things one play at a time, and it’s a game of runs,” Hilltoppers coach Kristi Faulkner said. “They’re going to make theirs and we hope that we can eventually make ours. We just continued to play it one possession at a time, and knew that anything could happen.”

But after putting up an 11-0 run led by Evans and junior Ellie Noble (18 points), Glenbard West managed to tie things up at 26-26 all at halftime and take control from there.

“We work really well together a lot, especially on those kick outs and drives,” Evans said. “Once we got those going, we had some pretty good momentum and kept it rolling.”

The Hilltoppers carried that momentum into the second half, getting the lead up to 45-36 heading into the final frame of play.

But St. Charles North (23-8) kept things interesting in the fourth with a flurry of 3-pointers led by junior Lelanie Posada and senior Riley Barber (14 points each) to pull it to a 63-60 game with 11 seconds remaining.

“They shot the heck out of the ball there,” North Stars coach Grant Oler said. “But credit to them, they made big plays when they needed to. And I wish them the best of luck.”

Junior Bronwyn How led the North Stars in scoring with 18 points and added 10 rebounds and four blocks.

“She was playing for our seniors” Oler said. “She cares so deeply about this team, and she wanted to make sure they went out in the right way, and while the result isn’t what we wanted, I’m absolutely proud of it.”