{"id":726663,"date":"2026-06-10T04:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726663\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T04:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:53:15","slug":"girls-basketball-teams-get-summer-tuneup-at-braidwood-shootout-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726663\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls basketball teams get summer tuneup at Braidwood Shootout \u2013 Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sixteen girls basketball teams gathered for the Braidwood Shootout on Tuesday, and Reed-Custer<\/a>\u2019s Alyssa Wollenzien was among the players taking in their final shootout with the host Comets. <\/p>\n

While helping lead the Comets to a fourth-place finish, the incoming senior also took time to enjoy just being back on the court and playing some games with her teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty excited to be back,\u201d she said. \u201cI just like being able to be together and playing against schools we don\u2019t regularly go against. It\u2019s just way better to be playing these tougher schools to get us ready for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Comets opened Tuesday\u2019s action with a 24-22 win over Bradley-Bourbonnais<\/a> and a 36-28 win over Plainfield Central before falling to Wilmington<\/a> 40-34 in the semifinals and Willows Academy 52-23 in the third-place game. <\/p>\n

With Wollenzien, coming off a season in which she earned IBCA Class 2A All-State special mention honors as a junior, and fellow returners Harlie Liebermann and Kamryn Wilkey leading the charge, head coach Shelby Zwolinski said the team has attacked their summer work without missing a beat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really nice to see in these last couple weeks prior to today\u2019s games, in our open gyms, that we really picked up where we left off,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a solid core of seniors and a couple juniors that got some great playing time last year. They really stepped up today.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Wilmington, wins against Clifton Central<\/a> and Beecher preceded their semifinal win over Reed-Custer. The Wildcats then went on to fall 47-21 to Tri-Valley in the championship game. <\/p>\n

With Sami Liaromatis, Keeley Walsh and Nina Egizio, the team\u2019s three leading scorers a season ago, back looking to follow up the winningest two-season stretch in program history, head coach Eric Dillon said he was pleased with how the team was able to hit the ground running Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first three games we had moments where the games were really tight, especially in the first half, and we just overcame that,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the girls are really proud of the way that they played. I told them that it that\u2019s a sign as to what\u2019s to come in the season. I can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clifton Central followed its loss to Wilmington with wins against Coal City and Peotone<\/a> to earn a spot in the consolation championship game, which ended in a 42-18 loss to Plano.<\/p>\n

While there is plenty of work still to do this summer, head coach Henry Hines said Tuesday was a good first step.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we\u2019ve got a solid six [returners] and a bunch of freshmen and sophomores, and they\u2019ve never seen the system, so it will take a while,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is only their first day, and they haven\u2019t done anything. If this was two weeks later and we\u2019d been in the gym and doing a little conditioning, this would be a little different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peotone was able to wrap its day with a win in the consolation third-place game following its loss to Central, downing Dwight 45-41. <\/p>\n

A familiar face is back on the sidelines this season for the Blue Devils, with athletic director Steve Strough occupying the head coaching role he held from 2008 to 2024 while posting a record of 347-121.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to be back,\u201d he said. \u201cI missed it for a couple years, but it was the right decision at the right time. I\u2019m looking forward to get back into it. It\u2019s a really hard-working group of kids here who want to get better every day, and they\u2019re fun to be around already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also wrapping the shootout with a win was Bradley-Bourbonnais, beating Herscher 18-17 to take fifth in the consolation bracket.<\/p>\n

The Boilermakers will have lots of new faces this season while senior point guard Abby Bonilla will be back to stabilize things, and head coach Kevin Maciejewski said he was happy with how this group battled through their first game action as a team. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of players who don\u2019t have varsity playing experience,\u201d he said. \u201cThe goal was just to compete, and we did that. …<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wide open for our JV group to step in. We\u2019ll see how that emerges throughout the summer and into the fall, and I\u2019m looking forward to see who steps up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sixteen girls basketball teams gathered for the Braidwood Shootout on Tuesday, and Reed-Custer\u2019s Alyssa Wollenzien was among the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,351979,351981,54922,34956,341215,351982,351978,85,351977,351980],"class_list":["post-726663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-bradley-bourbonnais-preps","tag-central-clifton-preps","tag-girls-basketball","tag-high-school-sports","tag-kankakee-county-front-headlines","tag-peotone-preps","tag-reed-custer-preps","tag-sports","tag-will-county-front-headlines","tag-wilmington-preps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}