It was smooth sailing for Bridget Rifenburg and Benet for two months.

And then bad luck came in waves.

The Redwings over the course of the last month have seen four of their top seven players go down with injuries. A 20-game winning streak was followed by three losses in five games, the last two by greater than 25 points.

“[Benet] coach [Joe] Kilbride says it takes a lot of character to see how you respond when adversity hits,” said Rifenburg, a Benet senior and Richmond commit. “When everybody was getting hurt coach said just to keep believing.”

Benet (24-4), ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press Class 4A poll for much of the season until its recent tumble, is the No. 1 seed at the East Aurora Sectional and hosts its regional next week.

The Redwings hope to be close to whole by then. Sophomore Lucy Tierney has already returned from a back injury, and senior guard Ava Thomas should be back from a recent case of shin splints.

Junior point guard Ava Mersinger, who suffered a badly sprained ankle in the loss to Nazareth Jan. 28, hasn’t played since, but has been medically cleared and should be good for regionals.

Senior guard Sailer Jones is out for the season with a torn ACL.

It’s not at all what the doctor ordered going into the playoffs, but Kilbride’s group has persevered.

“It’s that time of year where everybody is hurting. I think we are the poster child, the AP version of the class,” Kilbride said. “I just think we need to get them back and try to ramp them up. The biggest concern is ramp-up time. For us it’s get healthy and get ready. There is no cakewalk. The top 10 teams in our sectional are good enough to win a regional.”

Indeed, it’s a loaded Lyons Supersectional. Six of the top 10 teams in the current Associated Press rankings are either in the East Aurora or Hinsdale Central sectional that feeds into the Lyons Supersectional, including Nazareth, Waubonsie Valley, Benet, Naperville Central, Kenwood and Downers Grove North.

How loaded is it?

Nazareth, a No. 1 seed at Hinsdale Central, could potentially get Young in a regional final.

“It is what it is on geography,” Nazareth coach Eddie Stritzel said. “We have not only accepted it but embraced it.”

Rifenburg and senior Emma Briggs, a Furman commit, are the two last remnants of Benet’s 2023 Class 4A runner-up. The Redwings have lost to Waubonsie Valley, seeded second at East Aurora, in the last two sectional finals.

A rematch with Nazareth, who Benet split two games with during the regular season, could await in the supersectional.

“As much as we want to play Waubonsie and Nazareth with the revenge aspect, we have a lot of really good teams in front of us,” Rifenburg said. “We have to take it game by game.”

Nazareth (27-3), whose lone in-state loss came to Benet in December, has won 17 consecutive games, including the rematch with Benet, and ascended to No. 1 in the rankings last week.

Stritzel, who won his 500th career game this week, noted that three girls – BYU recruit Stella Sakalas, Sophia Towne and Lyla Shelton – have averaged scoring in double figures the last month.

“The schtick for a few years was if you manage Stella the other kids aren’t going to hurt you,” Stritzel said. “We have really flipped the script the last month.”

The sectional at Hinsdale is a bear. Downers Grove North (27-2), led by junior guard Campbell Thulin, has won 14 straight and Kenwood (22-6) is the defending state champion. Lyons (19-9), even with Cornell commit Emma O’Brien out for the year with a torn ACL, just beat Glenbard West handily and lost to state-ranked Fremd by just three with Gwen Smith leading the way.

“We’re playing really well, but I tell our girls the playoffs are so final. Sometimes you have to be at your best at the right time,” Stritzel said. “We have a really tough road.”

Downers Grove North, which can match a program win record by reaching the sectional final, has strung together an impressive set of wins during its win streak including Maine South, Glenbard West and Libertyville – all of them coming in the same week in January.

“I like where the kids are at. We are playing with confidence and ready to get at it in the postseason,” Downers Grove North coach Stephan Bolt said. “The supersectional is a little saturated with good teams. The goal is to play in a state championship, you’re going to be playing the best teams, you have to beat them at some point anyway. We’re focused on where our feet are.”

Glenbard West (25-4), coming off its first sectional championship since 1999, is the No. 1 seed at the Bartlett Sectional. DuKane Conference champion Lake Park is No. 2.

The Hilltoppers graduated seven seniors off that group, but led by junior forward Ellie Noble haven’t missed a beat with a 17-1 start to the season.

“It’s a group that’s very competitive, has great chemistry on and off the court and have played together for a long time and were waiting to have this time together,” Glenbard West coach Kristi Faulkner said. “The energy and enthusiasm day and day out has been amazing.”

The Hilltoppers have a 9-1 record against sectional opponents, including recent double-digit wins over top four seeds St. Charles East and St. Charles North. But Faulkner isn’t looking past anybody.

“The No. 1 seed is nice recognition, but we have so much respect for all the teams in the regional and sectional that it’s something we don’t pay attention to,” Faulkner said. “Ultimately every night you have to come out and play.”

In Class 3A, Glenbard South, coming off back-to-back regional championships, looks to take it the next step. The program went to state in 2018 and 2019, taking second in 3A in 2019.

The Upstate Eight champion Raiders (25-4), winners of 11 straight games, are the No. 1 seed in the De La Salle Sectional. Should they advance past the sectional, a rematch with Trinity – the last team to beat Glenbard South, 44-38 on Jan. 7 – could await in a supersectional at Concordia University.

“We have had a great season so far and we hope to go far in the postseason,” Glenbard South senior Callie Hardtke said. “We keep getting better. The most important thing is I think we are peaking at the right time and are ready to take on the playoffs.”