Fenwick’s girls basketball team will play its final East Suburban Catholic Conference game Saturday, and for former Friar Erin Power, one conference game stands out.
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Erin Power was a senior guard for her dad, Dave Power, who coached Fenwick to the 2007 Class AA state championship in the final year of two IHSA basketball classes.
Due to constant shuffling of the conference schedules, she said it seemed that the Friars played five consecutive games at rival Marian Catholic. The final one of the 2007 season sticks in her mind.
“We played Marian Catholic at Marian Catholic on their senior night,” Erin Power said. “It was a tall task with the East Suburban on the line. It was a highly touted game. It was supposed to be a close game, but we blew them out of the water.”
Fenwick won 42-25 behind senior Devereaux Peters’ 16 points and eight rebounds. The Friars beat the Spartans again in the state semifinals 53-39, and went on to win their second state title with a 35-27 victory over Bolingbrook. Marian Catholic placed third.
“We were the only two teams to end that season with a win,” said Erin Power, who is currently a social worker in St. Louis.
Erin Power grew up watching Fenwick basketball games while tagging along with her father to practices and asking players for tips.
It’s appropriate to her, then, that Fenwick’s final ESCC game will be Saturday at Marian Catholic. The Spartans have already clinched the conference title while Fenwick (13-16, 4-5) hopes to avoid just its fourth losing season in school history.
Fenwick began its girls basketball program during the 1992-93 season and two years later, in its inaugural year in the ESCC, the Friars went 18-12 and captured the conference title.
“We won it our first year without seniors,” said Dave Power, who is a member of the ESCC Hall of Fame.
Peters ended her Fenwick career with the 2007 state title before heading to Notre Dame. She scored 25 points and had 10 rebounds in Fenwick’s state semifinal win over Marian Catholic.
She is looking forward to playing her fourth season with the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx this spring. She is teammates with former Fenwick star Tricia Liston, who enters her second season.
The conference games against Marian Catholic and Marist were a chance for Peters to play against some of her AAU teammates from Chicago Hoops Express.
Fenwick has enjoyed a successful run in the ESCC. When the Friars placed third at state in 2010, it also was the final season of its 16-year streak of conference championships, either outright or shared.
Next year, Fenwick, along with ESCC members Providence and Bishop McNamara, will join the Girls Catholic Athletic Conference Red. The move was made after the boys teams from those three schools switched to the Chicago Catholic League.
The Friars will be reunited with former ESCC member St. Joseph, who moved its girls program to the GCAC when the boys joined the Catholic League.
It will mark a return for Dave Power, who formerly coached at now-shuttered Immaculate Heart of Mary before becoming Fenwick’s first coach.
One of Fenwick’s rivals in the GCAC Red will be this year’s champion, Trinity. Nicole Rivera, a member of Fenwick’s 2001 Class AA state championship team, is an assistant coach at Trinity.
Perhaps, someday, the Friars of the future will look at Trinity the same way their predecessors felt about Marian.
“Marian was always a fun game,” Peters said. “You looked forward to it. It was definitely one of the top rivalries we ever had. Marian was always the No. 1 rival for me.”
@geomwilcox
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