Whitney Young’s Alana Shields (1) controls the ball, Chicago, Illinois, February 11, 2023. | Allen Cunningham/For the Sun-Times
Allen Cunningham, Sun-Times
As the horn sounded on a playoff game, the public address announcer at UIC’s Credit Union 1 arena announced that the Dolphins would be playing in yet another championship game.
He made the announcement with an unsurprising tone. The Dolphins’ standards make playing for a championship a formality
After the opening quarter, it was a foregone conclusion that the Dolphins would win. Through rough shooting from both teams in the opening quarter, the Dolphins found their energy from two guards: Kiaya Johnson and Alana Shields.
Those two were the difference on Wednesday in Young’s 59-34 Public League Final Four win over Phillips (15-12). Shields and Johnson are diminutive in size and stature but play with a fierce intensity.
Young (23-5) shot 46% from the field in the opening quarter but forced 10 Phillips turnovers. The Dolphins won the game on the defensive end of the floor. One point is all the offense the Wildcats could muster, and that came with 22.8 seconds left in the quarter.
“One of the main things that we always talk about is defense, and they’re terrors on defense,” Young coach Krissy Harper said. “They start to get us going. They didn’t let offense dictate the defense.”
Each guard finished with three steals. The steals the two create often lead to fast-break opportunities. Johnson led the Dolphins with 16 points.
Whether it’s ripping the ball from an unsuspecting ball handler or reading where a pass is going, Shields and Johnson can ignite their team with defense.
“We worked pretty well together,” Johnson said. “We had our ups and downs but got it done together. We had to talk everything out, and we got good results.
Outside of the second quarter, where Phillips scored 15 points, the Dolphins never allowed more than 10 points in a quarter. They were stifling. Suffocating. Smothering. The Dolphins forced Phillips into 12-for-57 shooting.
The Dolphins beat Phillips by eight points on Jan. 27, which aided them in Wednesday’s rematch.
“In that first game, we let one person dictate what they did,” Shields said. “Once we found out we had to cut the head of the snake off, we got it done.”
Shields was everywhere on the court: She dove for near-steals, veered into the paint for rebounds, and ran on the fast break for easy baskets. Shields finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists. The junior guard never came out of the game, and playing on a college floor requires supreme endurance.
“We run a lot in practice, so it translates over into the game, and running on my own really helps,” Shields said of her stamina.
The Dolphins’ victory punched their ticket to Saturday’s Public League title game to defend their championship officially. They aren’t strangers to the big stage. It’s more of an expectation.
“I was telling the team the other day that I’ve never lost a city championship as a player or coach, so we don’t plan on doing it Saturday,” Harper said.
Kyle Williams is a staff reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.