Girls Basketball: NIU recruit Shannon Blacher powers Montini to comeback win over Deerfield

LAKE ZURICH – Shannon Blacher doesn’t need a refresher course on her status on Montini’s basketball team.

But Montini coach Shannon Spanos often makes a point not to let her senior guard lose sight of her importance to the Broncos.

“Shannon is that everything player,” Spanos said. “She does everything for us, from getting rebounds, running the offense, making big shots and driving to the basket. For her doing all those little things, it just opens up opportunities for everyone else. She’s our senior leader. This is her team.”

In front of a number of college head coaches Tuesday night, Blacher lived up to her reputation as a big-time player, scoring 20 points to power Montini to a 55-49 victory over Deerfield in the one-day, 18-team Exam Jamm at Lake Zurich.

Blacher, a Northern Illinois recruit, showed she belonged among the top players in the state with her sterling performance against the Warriors (10-2). Playing in front of an NIU assistant coach, along with DePaul coach Doug Bruno and assistants from Michigan and Illinois, Blacher was the premier player on the court.

She matched Deerfield’s trio of talented guards – sophomores Aubrey Galvan and Nikki Kerstein and senior Lexi Kerstein – by hitting four 3-pointers, including two in a row in a one-minute span in the third quarter to gain momentum in the game. Nikki Kerstein paced the Warriors with 16 points, while Lexi Kerstein poured in 15.

“I think we just needed some momentum to start winning the game, and I wanted to make a big shot and my teammates fed me the ball when I was open,” Blacher said. “I’m glad they went in. This was super fun because I want to make people know Montini is a good program and we can pull out a big win like this.”

Blacher buried two 3-pointers late in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 40-37, then teammate Victoria Matulevicius, who scored 17 points, made back-to-back 3s to close out the quarter for a 43-42 lead.

“We had to play very fast and match their intensity because they like to push the ball, so we had to do the same and play harder than they did,” Blacher said.

Matulevicius came up big throughout the high intensity game, burying four 3s, including a pair in the fourth quarter to help the Broncos pull away. Montini limited the high-scoring Warriors to four points in their final nine possessions over the last three minutes.

The Broncos (7-2) pulled ahead behind an aggressive attack, pushing the pace and dominating the boards, especially the offensive boards for second-chance points. The Broncos played the final three quarters without senior forward Eleanor Helm, who suffered a lower leg injury. Sophomore Shea Carver played strong, finishing with nine points to go with solid defense. Carver scored on a lay-in, off a pass from Blacher, to pad Montini’s lead to 49-44 amid an 8-0 run early in the fourth.

“We had a really young group out there tonight, and sophomore Peyton Farrell is the one who came in for Eleanor,” Spanos said. “It was hard to see her go down early in the game. Peyton did her job and got defensive boards and played good defense. That’s what we need from this group. Every night we need a new kid to step up. They’re capable of it. We’ve got a lot of young talent on this team.”

Matulevicius closed out the game with a reverse lay-in to punctuate the comeback win for the Broncos.

“We played really good defense and executed everything we talked about in practice, and we ran the floor and got rebounds and did everything we could,” Matulevicius said. “It was a really good team win and shows what we can achieve in this season.”