After defeating the Maine South girls basketball team 62-48 in the Class 4A Maine East Sectional semifinals Monday, Loyola is going to the movies.
Ramblers coach Jeremy Schoenecker said he will be viewing a 36-hour Maine West film marathon to prepare for the Ramblers’ sectional title game against the Warriors at 7 p.m. Thursday.
“We haven’t played them in (three) years,” said Schoenecker, whose team watched the first half of Maine West’s 52-38 win over fifth-seeded New Trier in the earlier semifinal Monday. “We’ll get a scouting report and give (the players) a game plan.”
Schoenecker said there will not be that much time spent practicing on the court. The players will be watching some film as well. The third-seeded Ramblers (25-5) also will be talking about how to defend and score against top-seeded Maine West (29-1).
The Warriors are ranked No. 5 in Class 4A in the latest AP state poll.
“It’s mostly mental now,” Schoenecker said. “We’ll be listening to what the girls are comfortable with and what they feel their strong points are.”
Loyola junior point guard Julia Martinez, who led the Ramblers with 20 points against seventh-seeded Maine South, said when the Ramblers watch film of the Warriors she will be looking at how Maine West reacts when flustered and the idiosyncrasies of the player she will guard when playing man-to-man defense.
“We want to see what they do when they get frustrated,” said Martinez, a Chicago resident. “We look for their weaknesses so we can know how to react.”
Before the Ramblers could think about the sectional title game, they had to dispatch the Hawks (20-11). Lilly Wehman, a 6-foot-2 senior forward from Winnetka, got Loyola started with a pair of 3-pointers in the first minute to give her team a 6-0 lead. She finished the game with 12 points, all coming on 3-pointers. Junior Celia Satter added 15 points, including a pair of baskets from 3-point range.
“We put a lot of emphasis on shooting in practice,” Wehman said. “We start with shooting drills and I get a lot of reps.”
Martinez, however, didn’t score any of her points behind the 3-point line. After she made her first pass of a possession, Martinez moved inside, often got the ball back from a teammate and then drove for layups or took short shots.
“I like getting inside and even posting up,” said Martinez, who stands 5-10. “Most of the time the person guarding me is not used to being there and it makes her uncomfortable.”
Wehman also creates mismatches when she takes 3-point attempts.
“They don’t expect her to be out there to do it,” Martinez said.
Trailing 25-10 at the end of the first quarter and 39-22 at halftime, Maine South narrowed Loyola’s lead to 48-40 with 1:21 remaining in the third quarter. During that quarter, Martinez got rebounds and assists but no points. She got going again in the fourth quarter — she scored five points — and so did the Ramblers.
“They were pressing all the time,” Martinez said. “I had to take control of the game. I started to go inside and if I didn’t have a shot I passed it out to my shooters.”
Schoenecker called Martinez “a very special” player.
“She gives us a presence inside and out,” he said.
Steve Sadin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter @Pioneer_Press
