Ramblers advance to sectional final

Loyola Academy’s Lilly Wehman bats down a shot by Maine South’s Greta Miller in Monday’s sectional semifinal game at Maine East. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL LERNER

Loyola Academy didn’t wait around.

The Ramblers hit Maine South with a flurry of points — 29 to be exact — in the opening nine minutes of the Class 4A girls basketball sectional semifinal at Maine East on Feb. 19.

“We came out on fire,” said LA junior point guard Julia Martinez, who tallied 15 of her game-high 20 points in the first half.

And when LA’s Erin Dillon swished a 25-foot rainbow three-pointer from the top of the key with 2:40 left in the second quarter, the Ramblers’ lead ballooned to 21 points.

Check the exits.

Nope, no one left the building.

And, as it turned out, constructing a Mount Everest-type lead ended up coming in very handy for the Ramblers.

Thanks to some attention-grabbing shots by Nicole Scales, the Hawks found a way to make the game entertaining. They trimmed LA’s lead down to eight points with 1:22 remaining in the third quarter.

But the mountain, if you will, was just too steep. LA weathered that third-quarter storm and wound up winning the game 62-48. The Ramblers (25-5) are set to play No. 1 seed Maine West in the sectional title game on Thursday night at 7 p.m.

“Credit her [Scales] for some great shooting,” said LA defensive ace Adie Morrill. “If anyone was going to bring them back, we knew it would be her.”

Scales tallied eight of her 14 points in that third quarter. She made four three-pointers in the game.

“We knew that we just had to keep it together defensively,” said Morrill, who held Scales scoreless in the telling fourth quarter.

Morrill, who will play college hoops at John Carroll University next year, has embraced her “stopper” role.

“I take pride in it,” she said. “It helps the team.”

“Adie is our rock on defense,” added LA head coach Jeremy Schoenecker. “It’s not a fun role. Who would want to be known as a defensive specialist?”

The Ramblers, meanwhile, had plenty of players step up on the offensive end, including Martinez, Lilly Wehman and Celia Satter.

Wehman buried back-to-back three-pointers on LA’s first two possessions.

Schoenecker said that his senior center has “upped the ante” during the team’s postseason run.

The Georgetown University recruit hit four three-pointers to finish the game with 12 points. She also had five blocks and five rebounds.

Satter also turned in a near flawless performance. She popped in seven points in first quarter and ended up with 12 points to go along with seven rebounds.

And, besides scoring 20 points, Martinez racked up seven assists and four rebounds.

Martinez admitted that she can’t wait to face mighty Maine West, who improved to 29-1 with its 52-38 victory over New Trier (24-6) in Monday’s other semifinal.

“Knowing that they only have one loss only makes us want to beat them even more,” said Martinez.