Girls take aim with 3s in Normal

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Johnsburg’s Megan Lopez and her teammates will be at Illinois State University’s Redbird Arena in Normal today, but not in the capacity they had hoped.

Lopez wanted to shoot in the IHSA Three-Point Showdown and work out with the Skyhawks in preparation for Friday’s Class 3A semifinal game. Instead, she will be shooting and her teammates will be cheering her on, but Johnsburg’s season as a team was over Monday when it lost to Oswego, 51-48, in the Elgin Supersectional.

Lopez, Marengo’s Amanda Hart, Hampshire’s Jessie Van Dorin and Prairie Ridge’s Katrina Kinowski are among the 32 competitors in Class 3A. Huntley’s CeCe Tsevas is the lone area shooter in Class 4A.

“I told my team before I advanced, ‘I want to go with you,’ ” said Lopez, a senior who hit 52 threes this season. “I wanted us all to be there, me shooting Thursday and us playing Friday and Saturday. I don’t want to go because it will be a remembrance of how we’re not there.

“I’m going to shoot for the team, but it just stinks they’re not going to be with me playing on Friday.”

Van Dorin also hoped to be in Normal with her team, but Oswego knocked Hampshire out in the DeKalb Sectional championship last week. Van Dorin hit 83 threes this season, second among area players to Johnsburg’s Melissa Dixon.

Van Dorin advanced to state as a freshman and made it to the sectional final last season.

“It feels really rewarding to make it there,” she said. “I know what it’s like [this time]. I’ll get nervous, but I won’t let it affect my round.”

Seyller steps down: Harvard girls basketball coach Casey Seyller has resigned as coach, and principal Rob Zielinski is taking applications for that position.

Seyller’s teams were 43-98 in his five seasons as coach. He also was sophomore coach for two years before that.

“It was just time to move on,” Seyller said. “I had a great experience and a great time coaching the girls at Harvard. It was an experience I would never take back. I got to be around a lot of great student-athletes that I care about a lot.”

Seyller said he will think about getting back into coaching at some point.

Working the finals: Zielinski was one of two area sports officials who were honored with trips to state finals competition last weekend.

Basketball official David Butts, a Cary resident, worked his third girls state basketball tournament at the Class 1A and 2A tournaments in Normal. Butts has been officiating for 32 years and worked the 2A state championship game Saturday, in which Bloomington Central Catholic defeated Quincy Notre Dame, 64-58.

Zielinski worked the IHSA Dual Team Wrestling State Tournament in Bloomington as a mat official. Harvard graduate Mike Vest, who does extensive work with IllinoisMatmen.com, one of the state’s foremost wrestling Web sites, also did commentary on IHSA.TV.

“This was my first team tournament,” Zielinski said. “I was pretty excited about it. You’re always hoping to get called and when it came, it was like, ‘Wow!’ ”

• Joe Stevenson covers high school sports for the Northwest Herald. He can be reached at 815-526-4513 or by e-mail at jstevenson@nwherald.com.