ST. CHARLES – The Westminster girls basketball team won only four games the entirety of last season. They began this year with similar results, winning only once in their first 10 games.
But first-year coach Nic Zenker assured players, that if they trusted the process, brighter days were ahead.
“He saw our potential,” senior captain Addie Kane said. “He believed in us more than we believed in ourselves.”
Now, everyone believes.
Kane scored 22 points, including the game-clinching free throws in overtime, as Westminster upset top-seeded St. Charles West 42-37 to win the Class 4 District 7 championship Saturday at Orchard Farm High.
Westminster (12-16), which won its last district title in 2021, advanced to play Mexico (15-12) in a Class 4 Sectional at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Westminster Christian Academy.
“We had a fire in our bellies,” Kane said. “We were confident that if we worked together, we could do this.”
The Wildcats needed all the confidence they could muster when St. Charles West erased an eight-point deficit and pushed the game to overtime. The two seniors on the Westminster roster led the way.
Brooke Brasfield drew a charge to start the extra session, and Kane scored on a tough baseline drive to give Westminster the lead. A Brasfield steal and lefty layup gave the Wildcats a 36-30 advantage with under two minutes remaining.
“As a senior, I knew this could be the last time I ever play with this wonderful team, and I just wanted to give it everything I had,” Brasfield said.
With the Wildcats leading 40-37 in the waning seconds of overtime, Kane was fouled in the backcourt and sprinted to the free throw line. She arrived before the official could address the scorer’s table.
“It was surreal,” Kane said. “I thought, ‘This is happening.’”
Kane swished both free throws, stole the inbounds pass and the improbable celebration began.
“Nobody thought we would be here now, and that’s what makes it so special,” Kane said.
With a 1-9 record and an average margin of defeat of 16.3 points, Zenker called a team meeting to take the temperature of the locker room.
“I told them, ‘We just have to keep believing that what we’re doing is right,” he said.
The breakthrough came in late January when Westminster defeated Borgia and Eureka on consecutive nights and experienced their first winning streak.
“Those were two really big wins,” Zenker said. “Something clicked with the girls that, ‘Hey, maybe we have a chance with this thing.’”
The Wildcats put together a three-game winning streak in mid-February and entered the postseason with confidence. A victory over St. Charles in the district semifinal set up a clash with 20-win, conference champion St. Charles West and the third leading scorer in the area, junior Alex Nicastro.
“After we watched the film, we decided that (Nicastro) was not going to beat us. We decided to guard her for 94 feet,” Zenker said.
The rotation of sophomore Lane Highmark and junior Kamia Cleveland face-guarded Nicastro full court, fought through screens and limited her touches. Nicastro caught the ball only three times in the first quarter. On her first touch of the second quarter, she was called for a charge.
“I was just trying to get in front of her and make sure she couldn’t get rebounds and score,” Highmark said.
With Nicastro neutralized, the first half became a shot-for-shot battle between Kane and St. Charles West junior Miley Jackson, as the two combined for 26 of the 34 points scored in the first half.
“These games, everybody gets nervous. I had confidence that I was prepared, and even if I missed some shots, they would fall eventually,” said Kane, who scored 14 first half points including four three-pointers.
Early in the third quarter, Kane scored off an in-bounds pass to give Westminster a 23-15 lead, but St. Charles West stormed back.
Jackson, who led the Warriors with 19 points, scored off a loose ball scramble and then drained a deep three on the following possession. Two free throws by Nicastro gave the Warriors a 24-23 lead to begin the fourth quarter.
“They did a great job on (Nicastro), but it’s not like we were getting bad shots. We were getting good shots, they just didn’t drop. Then, we did hit some shots and got a flurry going,” St. Charles West coach Terry Hollander said.
The teams exchanged haymakers in the fourth quarter. A smooth, duck-under, post move by junior Essence Robertson gave Westminster the lead before St. Charles West junior Eden Hollander answered with a corner three.
Westminster junior Addi Drumm drained a corner three to reclaim the lead for the Wildcats, but Hollander drained a deep three from the left wing to give the lead back to St. Charles West.
Two clutch free throws by Robertson sent the game to overtime tied at 30.
“That was the biggest part of the game,” Zenker said. “When (St. Charles West) took the lead, our girls had never really been in that situation before, and the girls handled it well. They just never gave up. They refused to lose.”
And despite the struggles of the past, they refused to think that winning a district championship was impossible.
“Coach (Zenker) emphasized from day one that last year doesn’t matter,” Brasfield said. “We worked with grit every day, and we believed.”
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