NORMAL, Ill. — Nazareth freshman Mia Gage wasn’t fazed by the pressure of playing in her first state championship game.
The 5-foot-11 forward didn’t take long to prove that as she fed junior guard Sophia Towne for a 3-pointer and the first points in the Class 4A state final at CEFCU Arena on Saturday night.
“My teammates were helping me,” Gage said. “Knowing that they were there for me and I could lean on them when the game was getting hard helped a lot.”
Gage did plenty for the Roadrunners, who made the game hard for Loyola from start to finish. Playing with a maturity beyond her years, she racked up 11 points, five rebounds, five steals and two assists as Nazareth routed the Ramblers 55-23.
This is the second state championship in four years and the 25th straight victory for the Roadrunners, who won the 3A title in 2023
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. The following year, they lost to Loyola in the 4A final.“I believe we are the first 3A team to win a 4A title,” Nazareth coach Eddie Stritzel said. “We set a goal for ourselves, and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
“I think we showed tonight we can play multiple styles of teams. I’m so happy for the girls. They’re amazing.”
“Amazing” is an overused superlative, but it was a fitting description for the utter dominance Gage and the Roadrunners displayed in the most lopsided 4A final. The Ramblers (34-3) had won 25 consecutive games, all by double digits, but never led in this one. They hadn’t scored fewer than 38 points in a game all season.
Everyone contributed for Nazareth. Towne had a game-high 17 points, five assists and four rebounds. Senior guard Lyla Shelton had eight points, junior forward Samantha Austin had seven points and a game-high 10 rebounds, and senior forward Stella Sakalas had seven points, four rebounds and three steals.
Gage, who already has offers from DePaul, Marshall and Sacramento State, made two free throws to give Nazareth the lead for good at 5-3, then made a steal and passed to Towne for another 3-pointer.
The steal was a sign of things to come. Gage, whose older cousin Devin starred on the Curie boys basketball team that won the 4A state title in 2016 and played at DePaul, uses her length to try for steals and deflections, and she succeeds more often than not.
“Our guards put so much pressure on the ball, it allows our wings to be very aggressive and shoot the gaps,” Stritzel said. “Mia knows I’m going to let her play through her mistakes. She knows when she takes a bad shot or makes a bad turnover, I’ll tell her to make up for it on the defensive end.”
Gage made few mistakes against the Ramblers, who pulled within 15-13 on a jumper by junior guard Madison Locke in the first minute of the second quarter.
Gage responded with an aggressive drive that resulted in a foul and two free throws. Loyola missed a shot and made three straight turnovers, two of which were steals by Gage, who took the second one coast to coast for a layup and a 19-13 edge with 5:19 left in the first half.
Loyola called timeout, to no avail. Gage’s spurt was the beginning of an incredible 40-10 closing run by the Roadrunners, who tied the team record for wins set in 2023.
Sakalas was a freshman on that 2023 team. The BYU commit thus opened and closed her high school career with state titles.
What advice did Sakalas give Gage to prepare for Loyola?
“Her confidence is just as it is,” Sakalas said. “Everyone feels each other, and she feels everybody else. The fact that she can get out here and get her head ready and is able to put on such a performance is amazing.”
Gage’s presence became even more crucial after Sakalas picked up her second and third fouls just seconds apart midway through the second quarter. Sakalas sat out the final four minutes of the half, but Nazareth outscored Loyola 4-0 during that span to take a 26-13 lead.
Sakalas returned to start the third quarter and set up a 3-pointer by Towne and a layup by Shelton to cap a 16-0 run.
Junior forward Emily Naraky then scored for Loyola, but Gage responded with a drive that resulted in a three-point play.
Nazareth’s dominance continued even after Sakalas got her fourth foul and sat out the next five minutes. The Ramblers mustered only two points in her absence.
“It didn’t slow us down any,” Towne said. “Stella is an amazing player, and she’s done so much this season. She was cheering us on the whole time. We were doing it for her when she couldn’t do it for us, and when she came back in, she scored a lot.”
Sakalas, who had 30 points in the Roadrunners’ 54-36 win over Belleville East in the state semifinals on Friday, scored five points in the fourth quarter in front of a crowd that included BYU women’s basketball coach Lee Cummard.
Stritzel considers Sakalas and Towne to be among the best players he has coached. Gage may join that list.
“Mia is going to be one of our all-time greats,” said Stritzel, who has coached Nazareth to six state trophies in the past eight full seasons and has an overall record of 508-103.
Gage has impressed Towne too.
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“Mia has been so good all season,” Towne said. “We put so much on her. We always forget that she’s a freshman because of how much she does. I’m so proud of her.
“She is always running around the court trying to get as many steals and deflections as she can. We always encourage that because she never gets in foul trouble, which is good too.”
With Gage wreaking so much havoc and Nazareth focused on pressuring on the perimeter, the Ramblers hardly had any time to set up for good shots. They missed their first 15 3-point attempts and shot just 8 of 35 overall.
Nazareth made 20 of 45 shots, including eight 3-pointers, and went 7 for 7 at the foul line.
“At Nazareth, we’re all about team, and I think that showed,” Gage said. “I don’t need to make shots. If my teammates make shots and we’re winning, that’s all that matters.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter.