Batavia’s Brooke Carlson makes it plain she wants the ball down the stretch.
“Yes, I like that a lot,” she said. “I like having control at the end of the game.”
The sophomore guard found herself in that position again in the Class 4A Addison Trail Regional championship game Friday.
Carlson milked the clock and then made four late free throws as the third-seeded Bulldogs topped sixth-seeded St. Charles North 50-34.
“Her shooting percentage goes up from the free-throw line the bigger the moment is,” Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said. “You can’t argue with the ball in her hands putting it up from the free-throw line.”
Carlson scored a game-high 17 points for Batavia (19-14), which won its first regional title since 2016 and will play Wheaton North (21-7) in a Class 4A Bartlett Sectional semifinal at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Geneva (25-4) will play St. Charles East (20-6) in the 6 p.m. semifinal. All four teams are from the DuKane Conference.
“It’s amazing, especially with this team,” Carlson said. “We’ve built such a good connection this year that it’s amazing to win with them.”
Batavia split two close games with St. Charles North (18-13) in the regular season but led by as many as 20 in this one.
“In this moment, to get this regional championship and get this plaque is just amazing, giving me goose bumps,” senior center Tessa Towers said. “It’s just unbelievable that we can make it this far, and we can go even further now.”
The crucial stretch for Batavia came in the second quarter. The Wisconsin-bound Towers, who scored 16 points, picked up her third foul and went to the bench. St. Charles North took a 17-16 lead at that point.
The Bulldogs responded without Towers, however. Sophomore guard Addi Lowe made a layup and a 3-pointer off the bench, sandwiched around a 3-pointer by Carlson, to give the Bulldogs a 24-17 halftime lead.
Towers then scored the first six points of the third quarter, and a layup by Carlson gave Batavia a 32-19 lead with 4:40 left in the third.
“That was so important,” Carlson said. “It kept our energy up. I felt like we kind of got down a little bit when she got her third, but we kept the energy going. It was just amazing.”
St. Charles North coach Mike Tomczak lamented that 16-2 run that flipped the momentum to Batavia.
“It was tough,” he said. “(Towers) did pick up that third foul. They came down and hit two shots. I thought that was the difference in the game. Your margin for error in these types of games at this level is so small. We weren’t able to respond offensively.”
Senior forward Erin Stack was the only St. Charles North player in double figures, scoring 16 points. Junior guard Alyssa Hughes, who scored 30 in a win against Batavia on Feb. 8, was held to four. The North Stars hit just 13 of 42 shots from the field.
“Everything (Friday) was about how good we were defensively,” Jensen said. “I think (North) is extremely talented. Hughes torched us last time. Everything that we did started and ended with how good we were defensively. We were very well-prepared. The girls executed everything that we asked them to to perfection.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.