The Byron girls are all the way back.
And they are once again on the doorstep of a girls basketball state championship.
“This is just what a state semifinal is supposed to look like,” Byron head coach Eric Yerly said after his team rallied for a 49-43 win over Elgin St. Edward in Thursday’s second IHSA Class 2A state semi. “(St. Edward) showed up today, and they wanted to win… But I’m so happy this group gets the chance to play for a state championship on Saturday.”
The Tigers, who placed second at state three years ago, fell behind 15-4 before coming to life Thursday, eventually hurtling past St. Edward with runs of 8-0 and 13-2.
Now they’ve punched their ticket to Saturday’s 2A state title game, where they will face off against Breese Central (31-3), which knocked off Pleasant Plains (30-3) by eight in the earlier 2A semifinal. The two teams will meet for the 2A state championship at noon Saturday.
This time it was a battle
Byron (33-2) just knocked off St. Edward (27-9) back on Feb. 12, by a 57-41 tally in the regular-season finale. But it was much more of a battle this time around.
“We weren’t at our best a couple of weeks ago when we played them,” St. Edward head coach Michelle Dawson said. “This was us… I’m proud of our girls.”
St. Edward was led by Savannah Lynch, a 5-10 junior who averaged 20.9 points and shot 62 percent (249-for-372) from the field coming into the game. She finished with 21 points on 6-for-11 shooting Thursday.
But Byron, now on a 21-game winning streak, many of which have come in impressive blowout fashion, found a way to shut her down down the stretch.
In the rare battle of two 2,000-point scorers, Groharing’s shot was off all night, and she started off 0-for-9 from the field while Lynch put up a quick nine points and four rebounds, and then slowed the rest of the way. Groharing and Lynch both became their program’s all-time leading scorers and surpassed 2,000 points earlier this season.
Groharing did haul in seven rebounds, had six steals and four assists, and she eventually scored nine points on 2 of 12 shooting from the floor. But it was Aubrie Fuller (21 points with three 3-pointers) and Malia Morton (14 points on 6-for-11 shooting) who took over the scoring roles for this game.
“The first half was a little rough for us,” Morton said. “But our mindset at halftime was just, like, ‘Let’s just re-set.’ We re-grouped, Aubrie (Fuller) took over, and we got this one… It just feels great to be coming back on Saturday.”
How did they rally?
Keyed by a baseline 3-pointer from Fuller and two fast-break layups by Morton, Byron used that 13-2 run to close out the first half with a 20-19 lead.
“We just needed to get back to being us,” Yerly said.
Byron took second in state three years ago, when Groharing and Morton were freshmen role players, and it won state championships in 2016 and 2017, and took third back in 1996.
Now, they are back to try to get another gold.
“We’ve got another shot at it,” Morton said. “I’m so pumped.”
The Tigers’ only two losses of the season came in back-to-back games against bigger schools: a 43-26 loss to 3A Sterling on Dec. 29, 2025, and a 62-42 setback to 4A Hononegah on Jan. 3.
Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and sign up for the Rockford High School Sports Newsletter here at rrstar.com. Jay has covered a variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears and Blackhawks to local youth sports, since the turn of the century at the Register Star.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Byron’s back, as it earns another shot at girls basketball state title
Reporting by Jay Taft, Rockford Register Star / Rockford Register Star
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