Hampshire opens new year with win against Sycamore

HAMPSHIRE – Hampshire showed signs of growth and promise at the Komaromy Holiday Classic to close 2024, going 2-2 at the loaded 16-team tournament hosted by Dundee-Crown.

The Whip-Purs continued that trend Friday to open the new year.

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Hampshire’s Chloe Van Horn works under the hoop against Sycamore in varsity girls basketball on Friday, Jan. 3, 2025, at Hampshire High School in Hampshire. (Patrick Kunzer for Shaw Local/Patrick Kunzer for Shaw Local)

Led by a team-high 17 points from junior guard Mikala Amegasse and 10 points and 11 rebounds from senior forward Chloe Van Horn, Hampshire won back-to-back games for only the second time this season with a 55-39 nonconference win over Sycamore.

“This is great for our confidence,” said Van Horn, who announced her commitment to play basketball and softball at Wisconsin-Plateville on Monday. “We started the season a little rough. We played some hard teams and hard games early, so I think coming out in the new year and playing hard the whole game and finishing is great for our confidence.”

Hampshire (6-9) led 8-3 after a first quarter in which both teams struggled to hit shots, going a combined 4 of 26 from the field.

But the Whips, who had only three turnovers in the first 16 minutes, built a 27-16 lead at halftime on the strength of a 9-3 run to end the second quarter. Amegasse, freshman Jiselle Lopez and senior Autumn Kriegel hit 3s in the quarter, and Van Horn closed the first half with four points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals.

Junior guard Roni Dumoulin drew the start in place of Lopez, who was recovering from being sick, and finished with nine points. Kriegel (eight points) and sophomore Peyton McCarthy (six points) each made two 3s in the win.

Hampshire coach Eric Samuelson said Van Horn has done a nice job of affecting games in multiple ways. She outworked the Spartans on the glass with six rebounds before scoring her first points in the second quarter.

“When she’s rebounding, when she’s sprinting the floor, she’s really hard to stop,” Samuelson said. “You see how effective she is getting to the hole and getting to the rim. She’s done a real great job of understanding that her effort kind of dictates where we’re going.

“If she goes hard, we’re all going hard. She’s been having a real nice senior year.”

Sycamore freshman point guard Sadie Lang led all scorers with 18 points and five 3-pointers, a couple coming from 23 feet away. Sophomore Quinn Carrier added 10 points and eight rebounds, and freshman Macy Calendo had six points on two 3s off the bench.

“We’ve been trying to send a message of competing all four quarters,” Sycamore coach Adam Wickness said. “That’s something we’ve struggled to do in the first half of the season, but I thought we competed well today. ... It didn’t always look great, but we competed all four quarters, and that was our No. 1 priority.”

Hampshire ran a triangle-and-2 defense in an effort to slow down Lang and Carrier. Those two combined for 28 of the Spartans' 39 points.

“We have two heavy scorers, and they did a pretty good job of limiting them,” Wickness said of Hampshire’s defense. “When you’re seeing a triangle-and-2, two of the other three have to step up and make a play, and that didn’t happen much in the first half.”

Lang scored 14 of her 18 points after halftime for the Spartans (5-10), who got as close as 27-23 in the third.

“It’s always tough when you have to rely on a freshman to be one of your main focal pieces,” Wickness said. “In past years we’ve had the luxury of having a lot of strong upperclass players. This year we don’t have a ton of seniors, so you can run into games where things kind of take a while to get going, but I’m proud of the way they competed.”

Hampshire ended the game with 11 turnovers, only three in the first half. Seven of the Whips' turnovers came in the fourth quarter when Sycamore moved to a full-court press.

Hampshire has a quick turnaround Saturday at Belvidere North before returning to Fox Valley Conference play Tuesday at Jacobs.

After a 1-7 start to the season, the Whips are starting to feel good about themselves.

“I think confidence is a big thing” said Amegasse, who added four steals and four assists. “We’re starting to be less timid, coming out more aggressive and just having a better mentality. We’re changing the way we think about it.”