Illinois
Missouri State Lady Bears got more late-game dramatics to top Illinois Chicago
The Lady Bears’ six-game homestand ended without a blemish as they’ve discovered consistency heading into their first road trip in over a month.
Missouri State (9-3, 3-0) escaped with a 51-50 win over Illinois Chicago (8-6, 1-2) on Saturday afternoon at Great Southern Bank Arena.
A Jade Masogayo go-ahead putback layup with 1.1 seconds remaining proved to be the difference. Illinois Chicago had an open look at a game-winner at the buzzer at the other end but the layup was short-armed.
It marked the Lady Bears’ third one-possession win over their winning streak. The win came a week after Lacy Stokes got a layup at the buzzer to fall in a 54-52 win over Northern Iowa. The Lady Bears are 5-0 in games decided by five points or less.
Before the winning streak, the Lady Bears had yet to put together two wins in a row. Over the stretch, they’ve shown massive improvement and the ability to win close games. They look to keep momentum going during their central Illinois road trip to Bradley on Thursday before playing Illinois State on Sunday.
Missouri State Lady Bears basketball responds to slow start with 20-0 run
Unlike how the Lady Bears started in their 20-point win over Valparaiso on Thursday evening, MSU found itself down in a 9-2 hole through the first four minutes.
That quickly changed as Missouri State finished the first quarter by scoring 20 unanswered points. Indya Green and Kyrah Daniels each scored seven points over the stretch while the defense forced UIC into eight-consecutive misses.
“I wasn’t pleased with how we started the game,” MSU head coach Beth Cunningham said. “That’s just something that can’t happen and we can’t continue to do it. We got hot on the offensive end for the floor and then started to get comfortable again. I don’t know what it is but I think more than anything that it’s mentality. It’s pedal to the metal and you just have to stay on it.”
UIC held MSU to five points in second quarter
Whatever UIC women’s basketball coach Ashleen Bracey said after the first quarter worked. The Flames held the Lady Bears to just five points in the second quarter after MSU scored 20 in the previous six minutes.
Missouri State didn’t score until Jade Masogayo got a layup to fall with 1:42 left in the half. Kyrah Daniels followed with a 3 before the break.
The Flames didn’t make the biggest dent into the Lady Bears’ lead as it led 27-21 at halftime. UIC started with a 10-0 run to start the quarter but only made one shot from the field over the final 6:39.
Lady Bears pull off another win in dramatic fashion
Neither team led by more than five in the second half and the final 4:38 never had a difference of more than a possession.
With the Lady Bears leading by two with 18.6 seconds to go, UIC guard Jaida McCloud missed the backend of a one-and-one with the Flames grabbing the rebound. After a timeout with 16 seconds remaining, UIC guard Makiyah Williams fought in the paint to get the ball to go off the backboard and in with three seconds left for a one-point advantage.
After a Lady Bears timeout, down one, a lob into Daniels underneath the basket was deflected into Masogayo’s hands who scored a go-ahead putback layup with 1.1 seconds remaining.
“Right place at the right time,” Masogayo said. “It just literally fell on my hands and I put it up.”
“It was just the way they pressure and overplay,” Cunningham added. “I felt like they overplayed. I thought we had (Daniels) and we threw it a bit short. If we threw it a bit higher, I think Kyrah probably would have had it there. But Jade was right there. It wasn’t exactly how it was designed but it ended up working out as a touch pass to Jade.”
A timeout advanced the ball up the court. A near-perfectly executed call gave the Flames an open look for a layup at the horn but the shot came up short.
Daniels led the Lady Bears with 15 points. No other Lady Bear scored more than nine as the team shot 35%. They held the Flames to 37.3% and came away with the win despite uncharacteristically losing the rebound battle by 10.
Up next
After six straight home games, the Lady Bears will hit the road for the first time since Dec. 6. They will travel to Bradley for a 6 p.m. game on Thursday before a 6 p.m. matchup at Illinois State on Jan. 14. Missouri State will return home Jan. 19 and 21 for games against Evansville and Indiana State.
Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or X at@WyattWheeler_NL.
Illinois
Unincorporated Bensenville residents say ‘nightmare’ rat infestation threatens their health, safety
UNINCORP. BENSENVILLE, Ill. (WLS) — People living in a neighborhood in unincorporated Bensenville say a rat infestation is a threat to their health and safety.
Those in the White Pines neighborhood say they know the source of the problem, but they feel like elected officials are not doing enough to help them.
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Multiple homeowners say the issue goes back at least two years. They believe one particular property is ground zero and that there have been no significant measures to eliminate what they are calling a rat infestation.
“It’s just a nightmare right now,” said White Pines resident Jim Brill.
Brill says for two years, he and his neighbors have dealt with rats running around their property.
“It’s impacting every house that surrounds that house. The rats come out when we put our trash cans out. They literally swarm out of the yard, that house’s yard, go in our trash cans,” Brill said.
Another neighbor says his home security picked up the rodents after they tripped the camera’s motion sensors, sharing at least a dozen videos with ABC7 showing them scurrying around the side of his house.
And pictures show multiple rats on the windowsills on the home that neighbors believe is the root of the issue.
“We have to, you know, take huge measures to maintain our property, and we’ve done that, but when your neighbor isn’t doing that, and then creating housing for these vermin, right, that carry disease, and can, you know, be troublesome and problematic, it’s quite frustrating,” said White Pines resident Kristin Henri.
Henri says her parents have lived there for more than 50 years, never with a rat problem, until 2024. She says the rats are a hazard to their health and safety.
“We’ve had rats on our property, running through in broad daylight, so it’s unnerving. I can’t let my dog out. I worry about my neighbor’s child across the street, who’s a toddler,” Henri said.
Henri and Brill say living in an unincorporated part of Bensenville has complicated matters. At this point, they believe it is in the county’s hands, but still the problem persists.
“We contacted the county. They keep telling us they’re going to take care of the problem, and they don’t,” Brill said.
“We need somebody to help eliminate this. It’s not fair to us. We maintain our properties, and we want to live in a safe environment,” Henri said.
The DuPage County Building and Zoning Staff told ABC7 they been working on this problem since 2024.
They are working with the owner of a single property to clean the home’s interior.
Once that’s done, the county says, it will have an exterminator come in and set traps in the area.
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Sightings of a fireball were reported across Illinois and at least eight other states on Monday night.
The American Meteor Society received nearly 200 reports of a fireball seen over Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin around 10 p.m.
Some of the reports out of Illinois came from Chicago, Aurora, Carpentersville, Warrenville, Addison, Waukegan, Oak Lawn, Shorewood Westchester, and Glen Ellyn. There were also reports from Indiana, including Valparaiso and Fort Wayne.
There was also a report out of Ontario, Canada.
Home camera footage, posted by the American Meteor Society, shows a flash across the sky in Michigan about an hour Northwest of Detroit.
A car crashed into a home in unincorporated Cary, Illinois, while three people were inside Monday evening, fire officials said.
A spokesperson for the Cary Fire Protection District said they were called to a home in the 2500 block of Oakdale Terrace just after 5:30 p.m. after reports came in that a vehicle had crashed into a house.
When paramedics and firefighters arrived, they found a black Jeep had slammed into a house, causing damage.
Three people were in the home at the time, fire officials said, but they were all able to get out safely and no injuries were reported. There were two people in the Jeep who got checked out by paramedics for minor injuries, but they declined further medical attention and did not want to go to a hospital.
Because of the damage to the home, McHenry County officials deemed it unsafe to occupy until repairs were made.
The American Red Cross is helping the four residents of the home with temporary housing and other needs while repairs are made.
The circumstances surrounding the crash are under investigation by the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office. It was not clear if any charges or citations would be issued.
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