One is a budding dynasty. The other has been knocking on the state championship door since Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
The question Saturday night was whether Bolingbrook would win its second girls basketball state title in three years, moving out of the club of one-time wonders, or whether Young finally would be a wonder itself.
The schools entered their Class 4A championship game with some finals history between them. In 2005, the first of Bolingbrook’s four straight finals appearances, Young won their Class AA third-place encounter 56-43. The following season Bolingbrook defeated Young 40-38 in overtime in the semifinals on its way to the AA crown.
The Raiders returned to the AA title game last March but fell to Fenwick. They fell again Saturday, losing 54-45 to Young, making its championship game debut.
Senior point guards Janisha Gearlds of Bolingbrook and D’Frantz Smart of Young have helped make every bit of their teams’ shared history. Each played 11 minutes in that 2005 third-place game as a reserve and became a starter the following season.
In demeanor, they seem a study in contrasts. The 5-foot-6-inch Gearlds plays without great outward emotion. The 5-foot Smart is every bit her team’s spunky QB, leading Young with a jut-jawed defiance that dares you to sell her short.
Both are nails tough. Gearlds injured her left knee before tryouts but returned quickly. She had nine points, six assists and seven steals Friday in Bolingbrook’s 56-47 overtime win over Marist.
“She’s the heart and soul of this team,” Bolingbrook coach Anthony Smith said.
Smart had 14 points, four assists and three steals as Young rallied for a 38-32 semifinal victory over Buffalo Grove. She provided the day’s signature play in the fourth quarter when she stripped the ball from an opponent, drove the length of the floor and scored on a spinning, scooping layup to put Young ahead for good.
“This is her last year, her last couple of games,” Young coach Corry Irvin said. “She has to step up like she is capable of.”
Leadership has been a particular challenge this season for Gearlds, who has signed with St. Louis. Bolingbrook lost four Division I recruits to graduation, and then senior Miranda Tate, its most talented returnee, left the team in December in a dispute with Smith, leaving Gearlds as the lone senior starter.
The team almost lost its coach as well. Smith, a Bolingbrook graduate, became the school’s boys coach last summer, only to quickly change his mind.
“We basically begged him to stay,” Gearlds said. “No matter how many mistakes we make, he never loses faith in his players.”
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Young could have lost faith in itself last season after it lost to underdog New Trier 45-43 in the supersectionals.
“I think more than anything, last year left us with a real hole, more so than the two third places,” Irvin said, referring to Young’s 2005 and 2006 Class AA finishes. “But I thought this group would be able to do it, stay focused.”
Young has been a power through most of the last 25 years. Its problem in winning a state title mostly has been Chicago Public League rival Marshall.
Young lost two of its three games to Marshall this season but didn’t have to worry about the Commandos, thanks to the Illinois High School Association’s new four-class system. Marshall wound up in Class 3A, where it won its eighth state title Saturday afternoon.
Irvin reached deep into her bag of motivational tricks to get her team back to Illinois State. During a recent team-bonding day she had players and coaches list their favorite things and then give one up for the stretch run.
Smart gave up her cell phone. Irvin gave up the Internet.
“It’s worth it,” Smart said.
Worth it because Young finally got to play in the season’s final game.
“That’s awesome,” Smart said, “with a capital A, baby.”
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