Girls basketball: 5 storylines to watch across The Times area this postseason

With the girls basketball postseason about to tip off, here are five storylines we’re watching across The Times coverage area.

Can Ottawa end a surprising postseason drought?

Perennially one of the best girls basketball teams in the extended Illinois Valley area, it might come as a surprise to read the Ottawa Pirates are currently going through the longest postseason championship drought in program history.

Ottawa has won an impressive 14 regional titles dating back to 1977, but none since claiming five plaques over a six-year period from 2008 to 2013. Thanks to a 20-win season against a challenging schedule, the Pirates have earned a navigable path to perhaps end that streak ... and another that’s just as surprising.

The No. 2 seed in their subsectional, Ottawa opens Tuesday, Feb. 18, against two-win Streator in the Class 3A Kankakee Regional. A win sends Ottawa straight to Thursday’s regional championship game against the winner of No. 7 seed Pontiac and No. 4 seed Kankakee – which ended Ottawa’s season last year in the Morris Regional semifinals.

If Ottawa can capture its first regional championship in a dozen years, the Pirates will have an opportunity to play for their program’s first-ever sectional game victory on their home court of Kingman Gym in the 3A Ottawa Sectional.

Huskers are No. 1! Huskers are No. 1!

The only Times-area team to earn a No. 1 seed this postseason is the Serena Huskers. Serena clinched the Little Ten Conference championship earlier this week with a win at Somonauk/Leland and stands at 23-6 heading into the last half of the final week of the regular season.

The Huskers have played every team in the six-school Class 1A Indian Creek Regional save for No. 7 Ashton-Franklin Center and beaten them all convincingly, aside from the team they seem likeliest to meet next Thursday for the regional title, fourth-seeded Yorkville Christian. Yorkville Christian defeated Serena 47-43 last week to snap the Huskers' nine-game winning streak.

Serena opens Tuesday against the winner of the Indian Creek-AFC play-in. Yorkville Christian plays the semifinal immediately afterward, facing either Hinckley-Big Rock or Newark.

Likely it’s St. Bede, Amboy awaiting Marquette

Another local team with a promising path to its regional championship game is the Marquette Crusaders, who entered the last half of this week with a 20-10 record and were awarded the No. 3 seed in the Class 1A St. Bede Regional.

Marquette has beaten its likeliest regional semifinal opponent, the fifth-seeded host Bedans, twice this season by double digits, but lost a late-January meeting with St. Bede 49-38. St. Bede will have to beat Gardner-South Wilmington to get to Tuesday’s semifinal with Marquette.

Whoever wins that semifinal will likely have to face No. 2 Amboy, a 21-win team that defeated Marquette 49-41 just after Christmas up in Amboy.

Marquette has not won a regional championship since 2012.

Starting early

A good number of area teams are going to get their postseasons going early this year, playing regional play-in/quarterfinal games this Saturday. Instead of being at the regional host site, these games are hosted by the higher seed, with winners advancing to the regional site proper for the semifinals.

Among those teams playing in Saturday quarterfinals are: in Class 2A – Fieldcrest hosting Midwest Central as part of the Peoria Manual Regional; Somonauk/Leland visiting Bureau Valley and Sandwich hosting Mendota to tip off the Princeton Regional; and in 1A – Earlville hosting Putnam County in the St. Bede Regional; Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland welcoming Calvary Christian as part of the Heyworth Regional; and Newark heading to Hinckley-Big Rock to start the Indian Creek Regional.

Who will be our Player of the Year?

With just a couple days of the regular season remaining, it appears our top award – The Times Girls Basketball Player of the Year – is still up for grabs.

Some potential frontrunners?

FCW’s Ella Derossett is having another monstrous season for the Falcons, recently breaking her program’s all-time scoring record.

Ottawa’s Marlie Orlandi was the preseason office favorite to be our 2023-24 Girls Basketball Player of the Year before losing her entire junior season to a leg injury. She’s back and has been spectacular for a balanced Pirates ballclub, as has teammate Skylar Dorsey, a Times All-Area first-team selection last winter in Orlandi’s absence.

Seneca’s Allyssa Zellers, Sandwich’s Hannah Treptow, Fieldcrest’s Macy Gochanour, Ottawa’s Hailey Larsen and Marquette’s Kaitlyn Davis have all put together impressive seasons as well, as has Serena senior Jenna Setchell, who’s taken on the team leadership role previously manned by last winter’s Times Girls Basketball Player of the Year, the now-graduated Paisley Twait.

Will any of them put together big postseason performances to carry their team to playoff hardware and pad their Player of the Year and/or All-Area Team resumes?

We’ll find out beginning Saturday.