Earlville’s Mady Olson helps steal 28-24 Little Ten road win over Somonauk

SOMONAUK — In a game where the shots weren’t falling and baskets were hard to come by for both sides, Earlville freshman guard Mady Olson found an easy solution, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for the Lady Red Raiders.

Trailing by three with just under a minute and a half to play in Thursday night’s Little Ten Conference contest against Somonauk, Olson swiped steals on back-to-back Lady Bobcats possessions and converted them into a pair of layups and a free throw to turn the tables on the hosts. Alexis Olson then sealed the 28-24 victory for the visitors by hitting both ends of one-and-bonus free throws with six seconds left.

“We needed other players to step up, and Mady and Alexis sure did, not only the final couple of minutes, but throughout the game.”

—  Earlville girls basketball coach Brandon Skolek

Mady Olson led Earlville (3-5, 3-4 Little Ten) with 16 points, three rebounds and three steals; Alexis Olson posted 12 points and seven rebounds; and Elizabeth Browder notched a team-high nine rebounds.

Somonauk (6-5, 4-2) was paced by 18 points, six rebounds and three blocks from Maggie Roberts; and three points each from Josie Rader and Ashley Eaton (10 rebounds, seven assists, three blocks).

“We had played Somonauk at the beginning of the season in the Little Ten Conference Tournament here, and they put a lot of pressure on our leading scorer, Elizabeth Browder, and that was the case again tonight,” said Earlville coach Brandon Skolek, a 2010 Ottawa High School graduate whose team lost to Somonauk, 47-37, on Feb 18. “We needed other players to step up, and Mady and Alexis sure did, not only the final couple of minutes, but throughout the game.”

Earlville came up empty on its 12 shots and had only a free throw on the scoreboard in the first quarter, but Roberts’ 10-foot jumper and top-of-the-key 3-pointer on second-chance opportunities were all Somonauk could muster to lead 5-1.

Alexis Olson netted six points and Mady Olson a 3-pointer in the second quarter, while Roberts and Eaton each registered three points as the hosts held an 11-10 advantage at the intermission.

“We talked at halftime about how we needed to box out better on the defensive end,” Skolek said. “We also said that even though we weren’t shooting the ball as well as we can, we needed to keep staying patient, working the ball around, and that the shots would start falling.

“I’m not sure we shot the ball better in the second half, but we did a much better job rebounding and just overall with our defense, especially on those last few defensive possessions.”

Mady Olson had all eight points for the Lady Red Raiders in the third quarter, including a free throw-line jumper with a minute remaining to give her team its first lead of the game at 18-16.

Somonauk responded in the fourth quarter with Rader hitting a 3 at the 5:16 mark and Roberts completing a three-point play at 3:25 and adding a pair of free throws at 2:37 to give the Lady Bobcats a 24-21 lead before Mady Olson’s aforementioned thefts and scores.

“We beat them the first time with a box-and-one [on Browder], and they didn’t really do anything different, but we just didn’t put on the pressure on defense tonight,” Somonauk coach Garland King said. “We were then forced to switch to man-to-man, which we didn’t want to do because of their size in the post. They get the ball down low, and it’s over.

“We talked about the trap was going to be coming and how to handle it in the final couple of minutes, but we just stood and looked at it. We lost our composure. We have spent a lot of practice time on passing and using ball fakes, stepping over to make a pass, the other four players without the ball moving or cutting to an open spot, but we didn’t do a very good job of doing those things, especially in the final minutes.”

Earlville next travels to play Plano at 7 p.m. Saturday, and Somonauk will host the same Lady Reapers squad in its next contest at 7 p.m. Tuesday.