Whips race to title

Hampshire's Cassie Dumoulin goes after a loose ball during the first quarter of the IHSA Class 3A Rochelle Regional championship game Thursday in Rochelle. (Beck Diefenbach – Shaw News Service)

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ROCHELLE – Hampshire girls basketball coach Sue Ellett urged her team to reach the 50-point mark before DeKalb in her halftime speech Thursday.

She wanted to outpace the deliberate Barbs’ offense. The top-seeded Whip-Purs responded as their guards hurried to transition into offense and got quick-hit shots from the perimeter in a 57-29 win in the IHSA Class 3A Rochelle Regional title game.

“I told the team at halftime: ‘Get me to 50,’ ” said Ellett, whose team led, 25-13, at halftime. “It was like the race to the moon. I knew if we got to 50 we would be all right. We came out with a goal and focus to do that.”

Hampshire will face Freeport in a DeKalb Sectional semifinal at 8:10 p.m. Monday.

Whips junior Karla Vietinghoff led all scorers with 20 points and drilled six three-pointers. Christina Heine had 12 points, and Cassie Dumoulin added 11 for Hampshire, which was 8 of 11 from beyond the arc. Taylor White led the Barbs with 12 points, and Michelle Todd had eight.

Second-seeded DeKalb (19-11) trailed, 10-9, at the end of the first quarter, but Hampshire (28-1) opened the second quarter with a 10-0 run. It was Vietinghoff who drilled threes on back-to-back possessions and extended the Whips’ lead to 20-10 at 2:10 in the second quarter.

Hampshire didn’t sink every three-pointer it attempted, but it seemed that way to the Barbs’ White.

“They were making every single shot,” White said. “We tried to get out there and shut them down, but it just wasn’t working. They drive and kick a lot. We tried to sprint out there and get in their face but they were just shooting over us.”

After a two-point loss to Hampshire in November, DeKalb coach Debbie Whitman expected a close game in the regional final. But the Barbs shot 23 percent from the field, 25 percent from three-point range and were forced into 17 turnovers by an opportunistic Hampshire defense.

“They came out and shot lights out,” Whitman said. “There were some times where we got lost defensively and they hit open shots. Other times they hit shots with our hands in their faces.”