Maybe only coach Derril Kipp knows how good his Maine West basketball team could have been this year.
It`s a safe bet no one who saw the Warriors` efforts in the Class AA girls` state tournament over the weekend could have pictured this team as the state champion.
Kipp could.
”If we just had everyone playing, I think we could have won it,” Kipp said. Instead, Marshall did, routing Wheaton Central 63-37 in the title game. The ”everyone” he was talking about was Diane DeSantis, out of action with a severe case of stomach cramps and flu complicated by a high fever. Friday night, after Maine West moved into the semifinals with a 54-48 victory over Richards, DeSantis had to be taken to a Champaign hospital for the second time in two days because of dehydration.
Saturday was even worse. After Maine West lost a 30-25 semifinal contest to Wheaton Central in the morning, DeSantis was taken home. She listened to the Warriors` 63-40 consolation loss to Peoria Richwoods from a bed in Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
DeSantis averaged 19.5 points and 12.3 rebounds for the Warriors this year. She scored 23 points in a 57-44 victory over Regina Dominican in the Rolling Meadows supersectional and was either the top scorer or tied for high- scoring honors in all but four of their games this year.
After Maine West lost to Wheaton Central, Kipp said he talked to one of the referees who officiated his supersectional contest.
”He told me if we had Diane, we could have won easily,” said Kipp, who then shrugged. ”But you can`t think about that.”
Okay, take DeSantis out, but at least give Maine West something to work with.
Guard Dana DeRosa, who along with DeSantis made The Tribune All-State team, came into the tournament with the same malady.
Against Wheaton Central, Kipp had to rest his star playmaker on three separate occasions. ”We did the best we could in that game,” said Kipp.
DeRosa was in better shape for the consolation game against Richwoods, winding up her high school career with a team-high 16 points and 4 assists.
”She must have the state record for assists,” insisted Kipp. ”The record in the program is 488, but Dana has been playing for us for four years and she had something like 260 just this year before we got into the tournament.”
Going into the state quarterfinals, Maine West had lost four times, but had played at full strength only once, that in an 85-70 loss to Young. Two of those four setbacks were in the Willowbrook Christmas tournament–to Wheaton Central and Immaculate Heart of Mary–when DeSantis and starting forward Linda Sherkey were injured.
What could have been never counts for much. Kipp understands that.
Two years ago, he guided Maine West to the state quarterfinals. DeSantis and DeRosa were both sophomores. ”It was just a taste for us then,” said DeRosa. ”We knew we`d be back.”
”The person I feel most sorry for is Diane,” said Kipp. ”She`s worked hard for us for four years and not to be able to play in the state tournament her senior year . . . I know how it must hurt her.”
No one enjoys a loss. Kipp`s plan was well thought out and at times carried out to perfection. It was a delay game made famous by Maine South boys` coach Quitman Sullins in 1979 when the Hawks used it to beat De La Salle in the Class AA quarterfinals on their way to the state crown.
Kipp was the freshman coach at Maine South then and filed away the plans for future use. Yet, in the final analysis, Maine West lost its desperate bid for an upset because it couldn`t control the game`s tempo or the offensive backboards.
You can translate that to playing without DeSantis and with an ill DeRosa.
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