Lopez knows winning

Johnsburg's Megan Lopez has posted more than 100 victories with the girls basketball team. She's the first athlete in a team sport at the school to accomplish the feat. (Northwest Herald file photo)

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At the start of the season, Johnsburg girls basketball coach Mike Toussaint told Megan Lopez she was on the cusp of accomplishing something no other Skyhawks athlete ever had.

Lopez, the Skyhawks’ senior point guard, figured the accomplishment would come in some obscure statistics category.

“I thought maybe I would be the player who took the most charges in school history or something,” Lopez said with a laugh. “But I was curious. I asked him all year what it was and he wouldn’t tell me.”

When the buzzer sounded and Johnsburg had beaten Richmond-Burton in an IHSA Class 3A Lakes Regional semifinal last week, Toussaint finally satisfied Lopez’s curiosity.

She had become the first player in school history to win 100 varsity games. A few wrestlers have done it throughout the years, Toussaint said, but no player to participate in a team sport has accomplished the feat.

“I was really surprised and so excited,” said Lopez, who has started for Johnsburg all four years, leading Johnsburg to four sectional finals in a row and two consecutive appearances in the Class 3A supersectional.

Johnsburg’s win against Antioch on Thursday gave Lopez her 101st career win and the Skyhawks’ sixth-consecutive regional title.

“I was amazed that I was the one to have done something like that, with all [the athletes] I’ve played with over the years. I couldn’t have done it without all of them.”

Johnsburg standouts Paige Fiedorowicz, who now plays at Marquette, Michelle McDonald at Winona (Minn.) State and Jenny Turpel (Lewis) did not reach the milestone. Fiedorowicz was closest, Toussaint said, with 96 career victories.

Lopez’s scoring statistics have not been eye-popping double-digits like those of her aforementioned teammates, but she has established herself as perhaps the most valuable pure point guard to come through Toussaint’s system.

“She’s perfect,” Toussaint said. “I never thought about it this way until recently, but she wears No. 10 and that’s what she is: A perfect ‘10.’ She’s a winner. She does whatever it takes to win. She doesn’t want to be the big scorer and she never wants to be the ball hog, but she gets the big shots when we need them and she’s always been the team leader.”

In the quiet hallways after school, Lopez’s voice cuts through the silence, calling out plays and running drills during practice, Toussaint said.

“If you can turn the sound of the crowd off during games, Megan would be the only sound you’d hear,” Toussaint said. “She’s just a winner and a leader. I couldn’t be happier for her.”

Lopez’s favorite wins include a win against rival Huntley in 2007, the 3A sectional championship against Regina Dominican in 2008 and the Skyhawks’ regular-season victory against Lincoln-Way East just before last Christmas.

There’s a lot more Lopez wants to add to her list, though, like a win Tuesday against St. Viator in a 3A sectional semifinal.

“This is one of the cherries on top of my senior season, for sure,” Lopez said. “I love that this happened this year; it’s a nice feeling. I really want to end on a high note, though, and if we do go far [in the playoffs], it would be the best way to end my career.”