Girls Basketball: A budding ‘superhero,’ Lenee Beaumont led Benet to 30 wins, fourth at state

Benet coach Joe Kilbride makes a unique comparison when describing his star junior guard Lenee Beaumont, and it’s not to a basketball player.

It does reflect Beaumont’s vast abilities and potential.

“I think she is sort of like in Spider-Man when he was just discovering his powers,” Kilbride said. “I feel like Lenee is kind of a superhero who is just discovering her powers and hasn’t quite figured out ways to use them. But she has such an array of abilities. When she learns to fully use them, she’ll be tremendous.”

She’s pretty special already.

Beaumont is a unicorn with a unique skill set for a guard, a facilitator and skilled passer with length at 6-foot. She is also like the modern-day pro point guard who can score. Beaumont put Benet on her back offensively in the first half of its supersectional win over Young. Legend has it that in Benet drills to see how many 3-pointers they can make in a minute, Beaumont routinely swishes 20 or so.

“It’s hard to get off 25 shots in a minute, let alone make them,” Kilbride said. “I can believe that every team we play is scheming ‘How are we going to guard this kid?’ ”

That dilemma was not uncommon. Beaumont led Benet to a 30-5 record, an unbeaten East Suburban Catholic Conference regular-season title and fourth place in Class 4A. Beaumont, voted Second Team All-State by the Associated Press, averaged 14.8 points, 4.4 rebounds, 3.7 assists and made 78 3-pointers at a sizzling 42% clip.

Beaumont is the Suburban Life Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

Beaumont arrived at Benet two years ago as a freshman on the most talented team Kilbride has ever had. The 2019-2020 Benet team had eight future Division I players. Beaumont quickly showed she belonged.

“When I threw her in with those kids, it was obvious within five minutes she could play,” Kilbride said. “The only questions were how soon do we get this kid on the floor, what’s the right way to have her fully develop.”

It was no surprise that Beaumont could play.

Beaumont’s mom played volleyball in college at UIC and Florida State. Her dad played Division III basketball and later became a boys basketball coach at Glenbard South. Beaumont as a young girl would go to his practices and do work on the sidelines while watching.

“Ever since I was young and could start walking, I feel like I had a basketball in my hand,” Beaumont said. “Sports has always been part of what I want to do.”

Beaumont, the older of two siblings, played “everything” when she was young. Basketball stuck. Beaumont went to Benet home games to watch Kathleen Doyle, and watched her win a state championship on TV.

“There’s videos of me trying to practice the moves she did,” Beaumont said.

A family friend was good friends with DePaul coach Doug Bruno, and Beaumont was a regular at his camps in fifth and sixth grade. Bruno came to a couple of Beaumont’s games after eighth grade and offered her a scholarship before her freshman year.

Beaumont’s recruitment, like that of many high school athletes, stalled for a time during the pandemic. She had a good, albeit abbreviated sophomore season. But no coaches saw it.

Out of that spotlight, the work continued. Two summers ago, during the COVID-19 shutdown, Beaumont was in the gym every day at least once with her AAU trainers. When Benet went online, Beaumont made it to the gym for at least two hours a day.

Even during the season, it’s hard to keep Beaumont from the gym.

After a few tough losses this season, Beaumont and her teammates would go to Benet’s old gym to put up shots at 10 p.m. until Kilbride kicked them out.

“Coach would see us and tell us to go to sleep,” Beaumont said.

College coaches woke up to Beaumont last spring and summer in a big way. Northwestern and Wisconsin offered her in June 2021. Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Tennessee joined the wave of offers in July that now are close to 35.

“I had no question that it would happen, Same thing with [Benet senior and Navy recruit] Morgan [Demos],” Kilbride said. “Coaches hadn’t seen her, but I knew she’d be fine. Morgan blew up, too, but she was like a cherry bomb. Lenee was a grenade, the size of the explosion.”

Beaumont said she hopes to make a college decision before AAU season in July. In the meantime, she continues to work on developing a better mindset, what Kilbride calls a “dog mentality” in taking charge of her team. His only complaint is at times she’s too unselfish, and Beaumont knows that. Last summer when Kilbride started working with this group he would stop and make the girls run if Beaumont passed up an open shot.

“The way he explains it, if we need a bucket, I have to be the one to step up, to not fear and stray away from the moment,” Beaumont said. “When it’s time to take over, I need to step up.”