No one from Ridgewood was sad when Micah Jones fouled out.
“To get her out of the game,” Spartans girls basketball coach Bryan Brooks said, “was big.”
So big that Ridgewood’s 54-44 victory over Cowden-Herrick-Beecher City in Saturday’s Class 1A third-place game at Redbird Arena in Normal may have never happened.
Trailing by three when the Hornets’ superstar freshman fouled out with 5:32 remaining, the Spartans (32-3) roared to a 19-6 run in the final minutes to pull ahead and lay claim as the third-best squad Class 1A.
The late spurt capped an exhilarating comeback in a game where Ridgewood trailed by as many as 11 points midway through the third quarter.
“We never gave up,” Ridgewood senior point guard Michelle Williams said.
The third-place finish caps off a storybook first season for the new co-op between AlWood and Cambridge high schools. It’s the best finish for AlWood since the 1994 Aces team placed second in Class A, and no team from Cambridge had ever brought home a trophy.
“It’s amazing. I never thought we’d be here at the beginning of the season,” Amanda Kruger said. “We fought hard. We deserve this . . . It’s indescribable.”
For the rest of this story, see the March 4 Galva News.
