Sterling wins first ever Western Big 6 Conference title

MOLINE — Her first two years in the Sterling girls basketball program were not the best of times for Madison Austin.

During that period, the Golden Warriors suffered through back-to-back winless seasons in Western Big 6 Conference play and had not finished better than .500 since joining the league in 2019-20. However, Austin felt brighter days were on the horizon.

Saturday afternoon at Moline’s historic Wharton Field House, Austin and her Sterling teammates completed a historic turnaround with a 64-40 victory over the Maroons, their 12th consecutive Big 6 win.

Coupled with Galesburg’s 50-47 loss to Rock Island, the Golden Warriors (25-5, 12-1 WB6) locked up their first outright Big 6 championship.

“This is really exciting,” said Austin, who contributed a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds to the Warriors' winning performance. “Things started off very rough in my first couple of years here, so it’s very exciting to move up in the Western Big 6.”

The 2021-22 and ’22-23 campaigns were less than golden for the Golden Warriors, who were 0-14 in the Western Big 6 in both seasons while winning just four times in 53 games.

Last winter’s 14-16 finish, which included a 6-8 showing in league play, planted the seeds for Sterling’s blossoming into a conference championship squad.

“We’ve been lucky to have girls who have been committed and who have put the time in,” said Sterling coach Taylor Jackson. “They’ve set goals for themselves and for us as a team, and it’s paying off. This conference beat us up a bit, but as young kids, they learned never to give up. They’re all amazing kids.”

The final stretch of the road to a conference title started off slightly bumpy against Moline (13-14, 6-7), as Sterling missed its first four shots.

All of that changed when junior guard Jae James knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and scored the Warriors' first eight points. That broke the ice as Sterling reeled off 10 straight points after spotting the Maroons an early bucket.

Down by as much as 11 in the first quarter, Moline closed the gap to 15-7 on an Aniya Dixon 3-pointer with 48 seconds left, but Sterling scored the final four points of the period to go up 19-7.

That was only the start of a 12-0 run that enabled the Warriors to widen their lead to 20 points. By halftime, Sterling held a 36-18 lead as sophomore guard Joslynn James banked in a 3-pointer to beat the first-half buzzer.

“Once someone starts hitting, their defense has to shift,” said the youngest of the James sisters, who finished with game highs of 24 points and six steals to go with six rebounds. “That opens everything up for the rest of us.”

Both James sisters scored 14 first-half points, with Jae James adding 17 points to support her younger sibling’s efforts. The younger James followed up with an eight-point third quarter as Sterling opened up a commanding 53-31 lead going into the final eight minutes.

“All of the (Big 6) teams this year were young, and good,” Joslynn James said. “All of us expected them to put up a fight, and this is where that got us.”

While savoring Saturday’s history-making moment, Austin feels that a conference championship is just a springboard to what she hopes is a lengthy postseason stay for Class 3A’s sixth-ranked club by the Associated Press.

“We’re hoping to go very far in the postseason, keep on winning and having fun together,” said the 6-foot-3 power forward and Illinois State commit. “We all have confidence in each other, and that really helps us out.”

“We’ve been trying our hardest for years to win a regional,” added Jae James. “First, we wanted to win the Big 6. Now winning a regional, that’s our next goal. We’ll take a day to celebrate, then it’s back to work on Monday.”

Jackson echoed her players' sentiments.

“A 20-win year, that was an early goal for us,” she said. “A Western Big 6 title, that was a big goal as well. To do damage in the postseason, to make a run in the postseason, that’s our third big goal.”