Maeve Savage made it to the pinnacle of high school basketball two years ago, a sophomore starter on Hinsdale South’s team that took fourth place in Class 3A, best in program history.

But the Hornets took a step back last year, finishing 13-19.

So as Savage, now a senior, climbed to cut down the nets in her own gym Friday, her last home game, the emotions were palpable.

“Honestly it means the world,” Savage said. “Last year, especially, we went through adversity and I really wanted to come back this season with these girls. It was definitely frustrating at times last year because I knew we had the talent. I knew we had it in us.”

Savage and the Hornets showed it.

The 5-foot-10 senior, one of four four-year varsity players on Hinsdale South, scored 19 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.

The Hornets clamped down defensively in the second half and went on to beat Lemont 34-29 in Friday’s Class 3A Hinsdale South Regional final.

First-year head coach Katie Salley, an assistant on the 2024 state team who returned to the program this year, cherished watching her seniors celebrate another championship in front of home fans.

Sloane Kiefer, another four-year senior, had six points and five rebounds for third-seeded Hinsdale South (18-9), which advances to face second-seeded Aurora Central Catholic in a sectional semifinal Tuesday at De La Salle.

“That’s what it was about,” Salley said. “We wanted it so bad for these seniors. They’ve been through it since freshman year and worked so hard. It was supposed to happen for them.”

Savage’s driving layup through contact with 11 seconds left in the third quarter gave Hinsdale South the lead for good, 27-26.

And then she hit a deep 3-pointer from the right wing for the first points of the fourth quarter, making it 30-26 with 5:18 left.

When Savage was not scoring, she was dominating the defensive glass and handling the ball, which she does well for a girl just shy of 6 foot.

“Maeve is just the glue to everything,” Salley said. “She is the calm in the storm, she is the one we go to and she is the one we yell at when we need to because we know she can take it. She is a fantastic leader. The girls look up to her and respect her and she does not take that lightly.”

Savage, like the rest of her team, struggled with her perimeter shot Friday. She missed seven consecutive 3-point attempts until the make in the fourth quarter.

But she adapted.

Savage started taking it hard to the rim against smaller defenders, like her basket to end the third quarter.

“My whole mindset is just keep shooting and eventually they’ll fall,” Savage. “I just had to drive, draw some fouls and get some free throws. Once you do that it builds your confidence back up and everything flows.”

Savage’s confidence that this could be a bounce-back year started when she got the call from Salley that she was coming back.

“Assistant two years ago, wasn’t here last year, was with us freshman year and a while before that. When she called me to tell me she got the job I was so happy,” Savage said. “She knows all of us so well. When you think you’re getting a new coach you worry sometimes. That was the head start we needed.”

Lemont (13-12) started well, leading 10-7 after a quarter. The teams exchanged the lead four times in the second, Claire Podrebarac sending Lemont into halftime ahead 21-19 with a 3-pointer as time expired.

But Lemont went scoreless for nearly five minutes to start the third quarter, and for the first 6 minutes and 34 seconds of the fourth.

Lemont managed just three free throws and zero field goals in the fourth quarter.

“I think we lost the understanding of kind of being the attacker in that third quarter,” Lemont coach Tracy Rainey said. “We settled for some shots that were probably not within our offensive scheme. Our inability to execute high-percentage shots and settling hurt us.”

Salley, for her part, pointed to an adjustment her team made in limiting Lemont to eight second-half points.

“We changed our defense. We started off switching on screens which we don’t normally do,” Salley said. “At halftime we asked the girls ‘are you comfortable’ and they said ‘can we go back to our normal defense’ and we got stops.”

Magdalene Mikroulis, a four-year varsity player and with Emma Barrett Lemont’s lone two seniors, scored a team-high 12 points, seven of her team’s eight in the second half.

“Both Emma and Mags have been phenomenal seniors, and they both lead in different ways,” Rainey said.

“We’re young, only two seniors, only five underclassmen so it’s nerve racking in moments like that. Super proud of our effort and the grit defensively we showed. We made them work for it.”