The Bloomington Kennedy girls' basketball team is the kind of in-your-face, score-at-will intimidating group that regularly shows up big when it matters most.
And Eastview's team has found a way to figure the Eagles out in South Suburban Conference play.
Six weeks after a potential game-tying shot against Kennedy barely missed the mark, the Lightning had good fortune fall its way last weekend. Taking a halftime cue from first-year coach Melissa Guebert, Eastview kept its composure early and often in the final 18 minutes to win by two points. The victory pulled the Lightning into a first-place tie with Kennedy.
"They are so talented and athletic; you can get up on that team and they will turn it around quick on you," Guebert said. "We never let our guard down. We stayed disciplined."
Down a point at halftime, Guebert wrote "Poised" on the locker room board.
"That was going to be the key to our game, and I felt it was slipping a little bit," she explained.
Eastview players responded by starting the second half on a 10-1 run.
Impressive as the victory was, the earlier loss to Kennedy still sticks out in Guebert's mind as among her "favorite" games of the year.
It came three days after a brutal 44-point home loss to top-ranked Hopkins. Guebert worried her team would respond with another lackluster effort at Kennedy, away from friendly fans.
She got the exact opposite and Eastview entered this week 11-1 since.
"I knew right then we were going to have a good season," she said. "Our kids played incredibly hard. It was a shifting game of the season."
You might guess the rematch is on her list of favorites, too, and you'd be right about that. But there's another not-so-obvious one as well.
The Lightning played Sioux Falls Washington in the semifinals of the St. Olaf tournament over the holidays. Eastview came away with a 17-point victory over the Warriors, a South Dakota state tournament contender and Guebert's high school rival while she was at Sioux Falls Lincoln in the 1980s.
"What I'm most proud of is I'm not sure people expected [the team] to have the type of season they have," Guebert said. "We have a lot of talent, and it's a group of players and coaches who enjoy the moment but it's short-lived. We feel there is so much more to come."
