Girls Basketball: Nazareth shakes off slow start, roars past Peoria into IHSA Class 3A championship game

NORMAL – Danielle Scully took a tumble onto the baseline fighting for a rebound, thought she was fine as she slowly got up but limped off the court.

Nazareth’s junior could laugh about the scary sight afterward.

Scully at first appeared headed to the locker room midway through the third quarter of Friday’s game, but in a blink of an eye was back on the court.

“I kind of threw my body on that one – just anything for the ball,” Scully said with a smile. “I landed on my groin and my leg bended weird. I thought it was fine, got up and started running and thought ‘Oh no, I’m not fine.’”

Scully was indeed fine. As was Nazareth, after a similarly uncomfortable start.

The No. 1-ranked Roadrunners shook off some early offensive jitters, along with a nine-point deficit to No. 3 Peoria, and answered with a devastating 32-1 run spanning most of the second and third quarters. Nazareth went on to a 48-35 win in the IHSA Class 3A semifinal at CEFCU Arena.

The Roadrunners (34-1), with their 29th consecutive win, are back in the state finals for the second consecutive year and third time since 2018. They’ll play No. 2-ranked Lincoln (36-0) at 5:30 p.m. Saturday for the program’s first state title. Lincoln beat Deerfield 76-56 behind All-Stater Kloe Froebe’s all-class state finals record 45 points.

“We know how we felt last year after we lost, and taking that to our grave,” Scully said. “We’re playing off of that.”

Scully scored 14 points and grabbed seven rebounds, Amalia Dray added 11 points and four steals and Olivia Austin had nine points and 12 rebounds for Nazareth, which remained unbeaten against in-state opponents.

Before her scary-looking fall, Scully helped pick up Nazareth.

The Roadrunners shot just 2 for 7 in the first quarter with two missed layups and five turnovers, and were tied 5-5 with Peoria after a quarter. A 9-0 Peoria run to start the second put Nazareth in an unfamiliar 14-5 hole.

Scully started to change all that, scoring on a hard driving layup and knocking down a corner 3-pointer. It proved the genesis of Nazareth’s huge run.

“For me, it’s always that I have to get going the first couple minutes or else I just kind of don’t look for my shot,” Scully said. “After I hit that layup I was like ‘Alright guys, we have to pick up the pace a little bit.’ I feel like it opened up the rim a little bit.”

Indeed it did.

A driving layup by Grace Carstensen gave Nazareth the lead for good at 17-15, and it was 19-15 by half on another driving score by Dray.

“We started off kind of slow with turnovers and missed shots, but we do a good job of coming together at times like that,” Carstensen said. “Danni’s shots and energy in general gave us a little bit of relief in a tight game.”

Meanwhile, a defensive switch was the catalyst to an enormous Peoria scoring drought.

The Lions (28-4) managed just one free throw over the final 5:41 of the second quarter, and needed a basket in the final 15 seconds of the third quarter to avoid a scoreless third. By that time, Peoria was staring at a 37-15 gulf.

“We changed defenses a little bit,” Nazareth coach Eddie Stritzel said. “Peoria is such a tough team to play against because once they get the lead on you they spread the court and want to shorten the game. We kind of changed to a halfcourt trap that sped them up. I didn’t realize it was a 32-1 run, but I could feel us getting stops.”

Peoria coach Meechie Edwards could feel it too.

The Lions shot just 1 for 12 in the third quarter, and Nazareth turned 15 Peoria turnovers into 19 points.

“We couldn’t put the ball in the basket. The ball just stuck,” Edwards said. “They [the Roadrunners] are long. They’re the type of team that if you make mistakes they make you pay. We were at 15 points for a while, and that’s not us.”

Neither was Peoria’s All-State junior Aaliyah Guyton, who shot 6 for 17 and scored just four of her 16 points over the first three quarters. The eyes, and quick hands, of Dray and Mary Bridget Wilson at the top of Nazareth’s zone were never far from Guyton.

“She’s a great player,” Wilson said of Guyton. “We wanted to try to get the ball out of her hands as much as we could.”

Scully and Austin combined for 11 points in an 18-2 third quarter and led Nazareth’s 33-22 edge on the glass with 12 offensive rebounds.

“We realized how close it was at half, and we made sure offensively and defensively to get on the boards,” Austin said. “We wanted to have second shots and we didn’t want them to have any.”

And now this Nazareth group gets a second shot at a first state title.

“I tell the girls all the time how humbling it is to be back here for the fourth time in the last five state series,” Stritzel said. “It’s an amazing accomplishment, and this is a special group.”