Benet beats Fremd in thriller to take Montini Tournament title

LOMBARD – Benet began the season with a rare loss. That’s nothing more than a distant memory at this point.

Winning their 14th game in a row after that opening defeat, the Redwings captured the prestigious Montini Christmas Tournament title with a thrilling 67-64 victory over Fremd Saturday.

Aria Mazza and Bridget Rifenburg led four players in double figures with 18 points apiece.

“This is a preview of what state could look like,” said Mazza, who topped her team with nine rebounds. “There is really good competition here. I thought we did a great job of sticking together. Now we just need to continue to work and stack days together. That will be important in the long run. We lost that first game but after that, we just said we are going to put our head down and work.

“I think people feel like the last shot or the last couple of plays are the definer of a game. But I think it was the little plays we made (that was the difference). Getting rebounds in the second half, playing team defense, getting stops.”

Benet (14-1), which avenged its lone loss to Lyons by knocking off the Lions in the semifinals, took a 51-49 lead into the final quarter but would trail by a single point on four different occasions over the final eight minutes of the back-and-forth affair.

Rifenburg gave her team the lead for good with a basket with 1:35 left and added a free throw with 22.3 seconds remaining. After the Vikings' Ellie Thompson made a free throw to slice the deficit in half, Ava Mersinger sank both of her attempts from the charity stripe with 5.8 on the clock.

Ella Todd’s potential game-tying 3-pointer was halfway down before bouncing out at the buzzer. A first-team all-tournament selection, Todd scored 22 points for Fremd (14-3).

“I’m really proud of our team,” said Rifenburg, who also tallied six rebounds and two steals. “We knew coming into this that this would be a tough battle. And we also knew that both teams would go on their own runs. We had to stay level and lean on each other the whole time.

“This is big, just knowing as we get deeper in the playoffs the games will be really competitive like this. We know we have to execute and not get down on ourselves.”

Joining Mazza as a first-team all-tourney pick was Lindsay Harzich, who contributed 12 points. Emma Briggs had 13 points and eight rebounds for the Redwings, who led 16-13 after one quarter and 33-32 at halftime.

“This has been a great tournament for us,” said Benet head coach Joe Kilbride, who thought the last time Benet had won this tournament was during the 2014-15 season. “Hinsdale South is good, St. Charles East is really good, Lyons is obviously great and then to beat Fremd in that type of game. Ella’s shot was almost down, we were really close to overtime.

“We are getting better, our defense is getting better. I thought our rebounding was poor in the first half but we cleaned that up in the second half. That’s the thing about this group, they’ve been able to make adjustments and add on; it’s been more of a cumulative process, not taking one step forward and then one step back. They are embracing the process.”

Fremd’s Coco Urlacher paced all scorers with 27 points to go along with five rebounds and three blocked shots. Greta Thompson knocked down a trio of 3-pointers and had 11 points.

“We had a pretty good tournament I’d say,” said Vikings coach James Han, whose team’s only other losses were to Kenwood and Hamilton Southeastern. “We played some good teams and obviously were really looking forward to this matchup; Benet is a perennial state contending team and this is a great event here at Montini.

“We just fell a little short. And we stressed it was because of the little things. Those things make the difference in close games against really good teams. They made a few more plays than us down the stretch and made a few more free throws than us down the stretch. But I feel comfortable in our growth moving forward, we know what we have to do to improve.”