Sophomore guard Alexis Maridis is the future for St. Charles East, but she wasn’t ready to look ahead Monday.
Not on this night.
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Already in her second season as a varsity starter, Maridis is a lock to play an even bigger role next season for the Saints. She was just hoping their magical run would have one more stop — at this weekend’s state finals in Normal.
“The first half didn’t go our way,” Maridis said. “Someone had to step up. You can lose the game, but you can keep going at it.”
Maridis made sure the Saints kept doing that during a 64-33 loss to Barrington in the Class 4A South Elgin Supersectional.
The Fillies couldn’t have had a much better first half, shooting 63% (17 of 27) to take a 40-10 lead. It couldn’t have been worse for the Saints, who shot just 14% (3 of 21) and had 17 turnovers.
The feisty Maridis did her best to offset that for St. Charles East (22-7), continuing to attack the basket and finishing with a team-high 13 points, but it was little solace.
“She never gives up,” St. Charles East interim coach Josh Foster said. “She is the toughest kid on the floor all the time. She’s just starting to figure out some of her strengths.
“I tell her all the time, when she figures out that midrange jumper, nobody’s going to be able to guard her. She’s a great point guard and only a sophomore.”
This night, though, the 5-foot-4 Maridis was only thinking of her senior teammates — in particular Torrie Kortan, a four-year starter.
“We had a lot of stuff happen,” Maridis said, referring to the team’s midseason coaching change. “It made us closer and each win all that more special.
“Torrie has been a big part of this program since she was a freshman. Most of the time, I had to persevere for my seniors because this meant a lot to them, especially Torrie and Cali (Papez).”
Kortan led the Saints to sectional wins over Geneva and Wheaton North with 18 and 21 points, respectively, but she was limited to five points against Barrington (29-5), which will be making its first trip to state in program history.
She wasn’t alone, however.
“They made everything and we couldn’t make anything,” Kortan said. “They had the momentum and we couldn’t get it.
“From the beginning, they had more than us. Unfortunately, we couldn’t come back.”
Sophie Swanson, a 5-11 junior forward and Purdue recruit, scored 21 points for Barrington. That matched 6-2 sophomore center Molly O’Riordan for game-high scoring honors.
“On film, it didn’t look like she was going to do much,” Kortan said of O’Riordan. “We didn’t think the press was gonna do much.”
O’Riordan finished with nine rebounds, four blocked shots and three assists.
“We were ready for her but she didn’t really get going right away,” Foster said of Swanson. “But (O’Riordan) really had herself a good first quarter. The refs let her be physical.
“That was kind of a shock. She really shut down the paint. The problem was, in the first quarter, we couldn’t hit a shot and then we started pressing.”
And nearly everything that could go wrong did.
“Sometimes, you play your best game,” Foster said. “Sometimes, you play your worst game. Today was just that day. I wish it could have been the first game of the season.
“This was quite a roller-coaster ride. Sometimes, you have a coaching change at midseason and everything goes into the toilet, but our seniors didn’t let that happen.”
Instead, it led to a historic run that equaled the best in program history dating to 1986-87, when the school was simply St. Charles.
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The program became East in 2000-01 when North opened, and this is the furthest the Saints have advanced since that time.
“It’s something to be proud of,” Foster said. “It’s just tough to end this way.”