IHSA girls basketball: Byron girls win, advance to state championship game

NORMAL — They're back. And with another stingy defense.

For the first time since they used an aggressive and stingy defense to haul in back-to-back state championships in 2016 and 2017, the Byron Tigers are back in the IHSA Class 2A girls state title game. They knocked off Butler College Prep out of Chicago 55-43 on Thursday afternoon, and now will play for a state championship Saturday afternoon.

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And it was their defense that led the charge again.

"What you just saw out there was two teams that really got after it defensively," Byron head coach Eric Yerly said after his squad annoyed Chicago Butler into 20 turnovers during a 55-43 semifinal victory. "I told the girls before this one started that the team that's going to win this game is the team that's going to play the best defense."

Slow start, fast finish

Byron (34-2) missed its first seven shots and fell behind 7-3 early on but was able to force six turnovers in the game's first four minutes to keep it close.

Ella Gundstrom, the tallest on the team at 5-foot-10, had six rebounds in game's first four minutes, despite going up against a 6-3 and a 6-4 post player.

"We knew we had to rebound and play defense; that's what we had to do to win this one," said Gundstrom, who finished with 14 rebounds, seven assists and six points. "We just wanted it more."

Her rebound and then a fastbreak assist to Ava Kultgen, who led all scorers in the game with 17 points, gave Byron its biggest lead at 17 with 6:40 left in the third. Chicago Butler never found its shooting touch.

Byron did.

"We just kept our heads in the game and stayed with it, even after we missed some shots in the beginning," said Kultgen. "We just know what each other is going to do out there. And we knew if we stuck with it, we'd find it."

The Tigers made 70% (14-for-20) of their shots in the second half, keeping Chicago Butler (30-7) at arm's length. The Lynx never got closer than five in the second half.

How good is this defense?

Byron held its playoff opponents to 28.7 and 28.9 points per game when they won their first two championships.

They've held their first six postseason foes to 42.7 points this time around. But Thursday's defensive gem was one for the ages.

"Hats off to Byron, they had a great defensive plan, obviously," Chicago Butler head coach Xaver Walton said. "It's no secret we are a 3-point shooting team, and we just had one player who was really hitting her 3s. ... That was because of that defense."

Byron stymied Xamiya Walton, Chicago Butler's junior point guard who is already a 4-star college recruit and was averaging 23.5 points per game headed in. She was 0-for-10 from 3-point range, had five turnovers, and finished with 16 points, seven steals and six rebounds. The Lynx made only 25% (17-for-68) of their shots all day.

"They just made it so difficult to catch and shoot, and to do anything out there," Xamiya Walton said of Byron's defense. "We didn't have a good game, either. But they made it hard on us, that's for sure."

Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @JayTaft. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com. Jay has covered a wide variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears to youth sports, since the turn of the century at the Register Star, and for over 30 years all together.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Byron Tigers girls win, advance to IHSA 2A state title game