‘It was time to get up and go to work’: Miller, Panthers fight through sickness to upend Saukees

CAMP POINT, Ill. — Lauren Miller did not make any excuses, even after she vomited at halftime of the Central-Southeastern girls basketball team’s game against Pittsfield on Monday.

“It was just from all the hacking and coughing,” she said. “It seems like that’s just going around.”

Miller, like several of her teammates, felt under the weather all day, but that did not stop her from scoring 26 points and leading the state-ranked Panthers to a 60-37 victory over the Saukees. CSE is sixth in the Associated Press Class 2A state poll, while Pittsfield is receiving votes.

“The other team’s not going to feel sorry for you,” Miller said. “It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you have to show up for your team.”

CSE coach Matt Long, who was not at 100 percent himself, made it clear he expects that hard-nosed attitude from everyone, no matter how they are feeling.

“I told them, ‘It’s pretty simple. This country was built on people getting up out of bed and going to work on days they don’t feel good,’” said Long, whose team improved to 22-3. “That was our expectation tonight. It was time to get up and go to work.”

So the Panthers went to work, jumping out to an 18-8 lead by the end of the first quarter, which Miller capped off with an and-one layup and a free throw with 2.1 seconds left to give her seven points in the opening frame.

Miller then knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and another two-point bucket in the second quarter to reach 15 points in the first half and help stretch the Panthers’ lead to 35-21.

“I had those couple early ones go in, so that gives you some confidence as a shooter,” Miller said. “Just seeing the ball go through the net gives you confidence. I thought I had some really open looks when my teammates drove and kicked it out. They just found me at the right spots, and I’m going to try to do what I can do to score and help my team.”

Miller put a bow on her scoring barrage by calmly draining a jumper at the third quarter buzzer, the final two of her 26 points.

“I knew some people were yelling, ‘Shoot it! Shoot it!’ but I knew I had to wait a couple more seconds and find my spot, and it just went in,” Miller said.

CSE guard Karly Peters sank a 3-pointer in each of the first three quarters and finished with 17 points.

“The shots went our way, thankfully,” Peters said. “We went and took it to them.”

The final of Peters’ three triples, which came with 4:11 left in the third quarter and extended the Panthers’ advantage to 42-23, was made possible by a hard screen set by Agnes Genenbacher that sent Pittsfield’s Lila Simon stumbling to the hardwood.

“That’s always fun getting in there, being physical,” Genenbacher said. “I like when the refs let us play.”

Genenbacher was third on the Panthers with eight points, and all of those points came in the paint.

“I’m a smaller post player, so I don’t really get the ball much in the post,” Genenbacher said. “It’s nice for me to get some time in there, get some work in there in practice and put it into the game.”

The Panthers held the Saukees (21-4) to seven points in the third quarter and nine in the fourth, resulting in Pittsfield’s second lowest point total of the season. Pittsfield’s lowest scoring output came in a 63-34 loss to Pleasant Plains on Jan. 14.

“Everywhere we went they were causing havoc, so props to them,” Saukees coach Noah Mendenhall said of CSE’s defense. “They were a defensive machine tonight. It felt like as soon as we had a good rotation on offense with our ball movement, we already had a hand in our face.”

CSE’s high pressure defense made it difficult for Reese Ramsey, the Saukees’ freshman sensation who came into Monday averaging 19 points per game, to find any rhythm. Ramsey finished 4 of 20 from the field with nine points, just the third time in 24 games she has been held to less than 10 points. She also missed 10 consecutive field goal attempts from the 6:35 mark of the second quarter until her 3-pointer 20 seconds into the fourth quarter.

“(Ramsey) looked at me, and I could tell she was just gassed,” Mendenhall said. “I’m proud of her effort and all the girls’ effort, really.”

Miller, a Class 2A all-stater last season, expects big things from Ramsey in the future, but on Monday, it was strictly business for the Panthers (22-3).

“She’s a great player,” Miller said. “She’s a great shooter and she can drive, so we knew we had to respect that, but we’re just going to treat every team the same, stay true to ourselves. We try not to let one person on a team beat us. We’re always in the gap, always in help. We’re going to make them work, for sure.

“We’re going to stay true to ourselves and keep the pedal to the metal.”