Hampshire falls just short of knocking off Boylan

The Hampshire girls basketball team faced an uphill battle after 6-foot-1 senior standout Emma Benoit picked up a pair of fouls in the opening two minutes of Thursday night's Class 3A Belvidere regional final against Rockford Boylan.

With Benoit spending significant time on the bench, the second-seeded Titans pounded the ball inside and extended a 9-point halftime advantage to 42-29 midway through the third quarter.

The No. 3 seed Whip-Purs mounted a furious comeback and whittled the lead down to two with 5:48 left, but Boylan made 8-of-10 from the free-throw line the rest of the way and held on for a hard-fought 58-55 victory.

Benoit heated up and tallied 13 of her game-high 20 points in the second half while juniors Rachel Dumoulin (14 points) and Meagan Heine (8 points) helped spearhead the late Whips' charge.

"We're a team that's been down throughout the season, but we're never out," said Hampshire coach Mike Featherly. "We made the adjustments and played better post defense in the second half, but we just came up short."

"We knew they were going to be all over Emma tonight, but she did a great job coming back at the end and we just had good execution," Rachel Dumoulin said. "We pushed through to the end, but it came down to the last couple of plays."

Heine energized Hampshire (20-9) in the third quarter by burying three consecutive midrange jumpers in a minute span. Benoit followed with a pair of 3-point plays to narrow the gap to 46-44.

Boylan (22-9), which will play either Sycamore or St. Francis Monday in the Rochelle sectional, switched to a box-and-1 on Benoit and held Hampshire scoreless for three minutes until Rachel Dumoulin's 3-pointer cut the lead to 51-48 with 2:23 left.

"We had to go to a box-and-1," said Boylan coach Paul Perrone. "Benoit's a great player and she was scoring at will inside and I had to gamble because it was going to leave the outside open."

Bridget Bishop came up with a huge putback to give the Titans a 53-48 lead with 1:42 left. Boylan guard Jessie Schiro, who scored 13 of her 16 points in the second half, made 5-of-6 free throws in the final minute to seal the win.

"I don't think there was any point that we felt that we couldn't come back," Benoit said. "Boylan did a great job and they can play."

Hampshire led 17-16 after one quarter as Rachel Dumoulin hit two 3-pointers and Nikki Dumoulin added 5 points against the Titans' zone.

Boylan switched to man in the second quarter and outscored the Whips 17-7 as junior Sarah Welsh tallied 11 of her team-high 19 points.

"I thought we weathered the storm with the foul trouble and to be only down by nine at half, we'll take that," Featherly said.

Nikki Dumoulin finished with 6 rebounds and 5 assists for the Whips.