Suburban Life Girls Basketball Player of the Year: Lenee Beaumont, ‘on a mission,’ led Benet to second place in state

Lenee Beaumont cannot quite pinpoint the genesis of her competitive streak.

She just knows she’s always hated losing.

Since she was super young, whatever the Benet senior guard did, she had to win. Park district games, meaningless contests, didn’t matter. That fire was only stoked when she was surrounded by like-minded teammates and coaches.

So when Beamont and Benet lost both games at the state tournament as a junior, she was consumed to make it right.

“All I could think of all summer is I wanted a chance to win a state championship,” Beaumont said. “Summer workouts, summer leagues, I felt somehow I had to help this team get better today. In our preseason talk, Coach asked me what I wanted to accomplish. I said I wanted the opportunity to go back down to state.”

It was a journey not without detours.

Benet, with a roster not as deep as others Beaumont has been surrounded by, lost seven regular-season games – the most in coach Joe Kilbride’s nine seasons. A three-game losing streak at midseason left him wondering if this team had the stuff for a playoff run.

Beaumont would not accept otherwise. She averaged 22 points, 10 rebounds and three assists in Benet’s seven playoff games. She had 21 points and 14 rebounds in the sectional final and 25 points and the game-winning assist in the final seconds of the supersectional.

In an epic championship game, the Indiana recruit willed Benet back from 15 points down with 27 points and eight rebounds to an eventual double-overtime loss to O’Fallon.

“She was on a personal mission to get us back down there and get it done,” Kilbride said. “That loss, I felt worse for Lenee than anybody else because of what she put in to make it happen. I’m telling you, every day. She shows up and gets after it every single day. When we got to the playoffs, she was locked in.”

Beaumont, an AP First Team All-Stater and the Gatorade Illinois Player of the Year who averaged 19.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.7 steals, broke Kathleen Doyle’s school record for points in a season and led Benet to second in Class 4A, is the Suburban Life Player of the Year for the second straight season.

Beaumont, while devastated at losing her final game, could put the journey and the historic final into perspective.

“If you look back to December, a lot of people felt we wouldn’t have been in the supersectional,” Beaumont said. “Just to think we competed with the best and had the opportunities we did, it’s incredible to think about.”

Kilbride, who feels fortunate to have coached two generational talents, marvels at how Beaumont added to her skill set from the kid who first walked through Benet’s doors as the most skilled eighth-grader he’d ever seen.

Always possessing good size for a guard, Beaumont lifted four times a week this past offseason to get stronger. She worked with Jeff Pagliocca, a trainer with the Chicago Sky and some NBA clubs, on her basketball skills and focus for games.

Beaumont, in addition to everything else she does, became a dominant rebounder in the playoffs. Kilbride called her “maybe the best post player in Illinois, and she’s a guard.”

“I showed her film from last year’s Kenwood game to show her what they did to defend her, and her comment was, ‘That was before I got in the weight room,’ ” Kilbride said. “She got to where she could put her shoulder on you and control you.”

Beaumont had what Kilbride considered a little bit of a shooting slump in the playoffs, struggles from the 3-point line that Beaumont deemed “just not as consistent as I want to be.” Instead of forcing the action, she adapted, becoming an efficient scorer inside the arc.

“Her response is, if I’m not going to make 3s, I’m going to hunt 2s,” Kilbride said. “That is how good she is. If one thing isn’t working, she’ll do the other 52 things she can do well.

“I think in the playoffs she only shot 28% from the arc - which for her is horrible – but she recognized it. Kathleen was like that, too. If one thing isn’t working, I will do something different. They both have such a varied skill set and ability to impact the game in different ways.”

Beaumont’s biggest growth in the last two years is a recognition that her team is best-served by a “dog mentality” to hunt for her own shot.

In past seasons, Kilbride at times had to yell at Beaumont to shoot it. At practices before her junior year, Kilbride would stop and make the girls run if Beaumont passed up an open shot. An AAU coach of hers challenged Beaumont at one point to score 20 points in a game.

Kilbride after last season compared Beaumont to “Spider-Man,” a superhero who had not yet realized her powers. He’s since revised that thought.

“She hadn’t discovered her super powers yet, but now she has,” Kilbride said. “Criminals better beware.”

Beaumont cannot wait for what’s next. She committed last April to Indiana, which is currently ranked No. 2 in the country and won the Big Ten regular-season championship.

“It’s awesome – I can’t wait to be in that type of atmosphere, that high level of a team,” Beaumont said. “I assume they’re going to be pretty good. They’re only losing two players, which is super exciting.

“I just want to help in any way I can. It’s going to be tough, you have to prove yourself and work super hard, but I’m super excited to find my role.”