Sydney Johnson, Lelanie Posada come up clutch late to help St. Charles North to OT victory over Geneva

GENEVA — St. Charles North sophomore Lelanie Posada isn’t used to trying to score in the paint most of the time.

Listed as 5-foot-6, the guard usually takes a majority of her shots in the outer portions of the arc. On rare occasions does she find herself driving to the rim for points.

But with her team trailing by two with less than a minute left in regulation against Geneva, she found one of those rare moments and took it.

And made the ball swish through the net.

“I knew that the girls weren’t going to go for a charge,” Posada said. “Going to the basket is one of my struggles, but I saw the time and knew we needed something, so I just went for it.”

Posada’s floater ended up forcing Friday’s game into overtime, where the sophomore and junior Sydney Johnson helped the North Stars secure a 47-45 victory over the Vikings.

“Regardless of record, Geneva is a tough place to win and they’re a great program,” North Stars head coach Mike Tomczak said. “They came out and played with more intensity early on, and the ball wasn’t falling for us. But we’re happy to come out of here with a win.”

St. Charles North (18-3 overall, 5-2 DuKane Conference) ended regulation shooting 27.4% (17-of-62) from the field, a mark that the players knew wasn’t the best.

But with overtime lurking, the North Stars knew that they had to leave their play in regulation behind and focus on getting the win.

And nobody embraced that mentality more than Johnson.

“I just knew that we needed some shots and I knew it wasn’t right for me to sulk around on the missed shots,” Johnson said. “I was getting lifted up by my team and just wanted to hit those shots.”

The junior ended up scoring five of her 15 points in overtime, including a corner 3 that gave the North Stars the lead for good.

“Tomczak was just standing there telling us we’ve got to score,” Johnson said. “I knew that the defender gave me enough space, and I just threw it up there.”

Posada added two more points with under 10 seconds left in the game after sinking both free throws to give her a game-high 16 points and make it a 47-42 game.

While she didn’t know it at the time, the sophomore’s charity shots ended up being the difference maker after Geneva senior Peri Sweeney knocked down a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

“I know in practice, when we usually shoot free throws, I do OK, but I’ve been struggling,” Posada said. “But I just had to forget about some of the missed ones and made the two that I had in front of me.”

Geneva (5-13, 2-5) led for the majority of the contest, getting its lead as high as eight points early. The Vikings even had a chance to win at the end of regulation with a 3-pointer from sophomore Linnea Popp bouncing off the rim as time expired.

“We were right there,” Geneva coach Sarah Meadows said. “I thought that we could compete against a tough team like North, and I thought that we did a nice job.”

Part of the Vikings' early success was from earning multiple trips to the charity stripe. Despite earning 21 shots at the free throw line in the game, including 16 in the first half, the Vikings only managed to sink 10 of them.

“If we can make more free throws and have less turnovers, we win that game,” Meadows said. “That’s been our M.O. this season, to take care of the ball and finish at the line, and we’ve got to start doing that.”

Senior Bridget Hecker led Geneva with 10 points, while Sweeney was right behind with nine.

https://www.shawlocal.com/kane-county-chronicle/2025/01/18/sydney-johnson-lelanie-posada-come-up-clutch-late-to-help-st-charles-north-to-ot-victory-over-geneva/