Basketball is a game of decisions, and Huntley girls basketball didn’t get the decision at its regional game on Tuesday night with Huntley fans and Raider Nation gravitating to the boys game at home against its rival Jacobs.

A single Huntley student wasn’t in sight at the Belvidere North Regional Semifinal between Huntley and DeKalb.  But Principal Dave Johnson and Athletic Director Michelle Jakubowski made the less popular decision, trekking north to see Huntley’s rematch against the team that knocked it out of the playoffs just one year and two days ago.

I’m sure they’d say their decision was a good one.

Defense was the tooth-clenching facet of the first quarter, which the Lady Barbs cemented by leading 8-4.  In almost identical form to last year’s game, high intensity and stalwart defense took over as small plays such as fumbled passes and botched shots were magnified to landscapes under the microscope of playoff girls basketball.  It would only make sense for Huntley’s Bethany Zornow, who seemed to be filling that lens as the pressure set in, to be the antibody in the Raiders’ Petri dish of success this season.

“I had to forget about my mistakes and go forward,” she said.

The junior guard did go forward, finishing the night with 11 points to cap the Raiders’ 50-46 victory.

“Bethany Zornow did a real nice job tonight,” said Huntley head coach Steve Raethz.  “[She] came with some real key baskets.”

But the biggest play for Zornow and the Raiders came in the fourth quarter of the game when Huntley lead 47-46.  After a DeKalb inbound that climaxed a series of back-and-forth plays at the 42 second mark, DeKalb senior guard Rachel Torres launched an arching 3 that banked off the front iron, leaving Zornow and DeKalb’s three tallest players to leap and jockey for the imperative rebound.

Zornow came down with it.

“It was pretty awesome,” she said, all smiles after the game.

After the rebound, DeKalb was forced to foul Huntley and the game was over quickly with Huntley’s young team withstanding the test of time once more.

“They executed out game plan well on both ends of the floor,” Raethz said.

Perhaps the top executers of the game were the Andrews sisters, once again, with junior Sam scoring 13 points and freshman Ali finishing with a game-high 18 points.  After the tight first quarter, it was Ali who stepped up and lead the Raiders offensively, slicing through the pressure and giving Huntley the small lead it retained for the rest of the game.

“It was really just about handling the pressure,” Raethz said.  “Ali Andrews did a real nice job of stepping up and handling the basketball for us.”

Huntley continued to show that it could handle pressure well by holding onto its lead through the third quarter, Huntley’s poorest quarter this season, and by nailing eight of 10 decisive free throws down the stretch in the final quarter.

“We made our foul shots when they mattered,” Raethz said.  “When things got tight, we didn’t waver.”

On Thursday, Huntley will seek to remain its composure in the regional championship game against host Belvidere North, the team that clobbered Rockford East by scoring over 70 points in the prelude to Huntley’s game.

Huntley hopes to come into its game prepared and composed, ready to make the right decisions.

Even if the fans don’t.

Photos by: Mike Krebs/The Voice