\n Benet\u2019s Emma Briggs shoots over Naperville North\u2019s Samantha Kelly during last season\u2019s Class 4A Benet Regional championship game.
\n Jon Cunningham\/Shaw Local News Network\n <\/p>\n
On and off the basketball court, Benet\u2019s four-year varsity duo of Emma Briggs and Bridget Rifenburg are hard to pin down.<\/p>\n
On a team that essentially plays five guards, this pair of 6-footers initiates the Redwings offensively from the defensive end. They\u2019re both essentially wing players, or will be in college, but they\u2019ll defend inside and also handle the ball, fast, downhill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just both so good in space and really hard to guard. They get to the rim, finish, pass it,\u201d Benet coach Joe Kilbride said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re basketball players. They\u2019re very representative of this whole positionless basketball thing that everyone talks about.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a sport that penalizes traveling, Rifenburg and Briggs embrace it \u2014 off the court.<\/p>\n
Rifenburg, from Downers Grove, who committed to the University of Richmond from among 11 scholarship offers, recently concluded her summer season with the Wolverinas club that trains in Libertyville.<\/p>\n
The Wolverinas took her from Iowa to Las Vegas to Arizona, where they went 17-0 over the three sessions before winding up at Chicago\u2019s McCormick Place to conclude her Elite Youth Basketball League summer campaign.<\/p>\n
Briggs\u2019 schedule goes overseas. Born to a British father, Richard, and a Chinese mother, Jessica, Emma was born in Beijing and moved to the United States when she was 4.<\/p>\n
A British citizen, Briggs lives with her family in Glen Ellyn but is also a member of Great Britain\u2019s 18-Under Women\u2019s National Team. Just days after school ended in June she left for basketball camp in Nottingham, England.<\/p>\n
Briggs visited German, Slovakia and Austria before the Brits went to Lithuania for the FIBA U18 Women\u2019s EuroBasket 2025 Division B. Great Britain finished sixth of 21 teams, Briggs averaging 6.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.6 assists.<\/p>\n
Stationary long enough for a phone call, Briggs spoke from Rock Hill, S.C., playing with the U17s of her local club team, M14, out of Aurora.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s definitely a privilege that I can do it,\u201d Briggs said of the travel. \u201cNot a lot of 16 year olds can say they\u2019ve been to as many countries as I have.\u201d<\/p>\n
States, too. Her seven scholarship offers include San Francisco and St. Mary\u2019s in California and Cornell in New York, where she\u2019d planned visits along with another to Furman in South Carolina.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Benet’s Bridget Rifenburg shoots during last season\u2019s Class 4A Bolingbrook Sectional final.
\n Gary E Duncan Sr.\/Shaw Local News Network\n <\/p>\n
Incoming three-year starters at Benet Academy, Briggs and Rifenburg put up nearly identical statistics last season as all-East Suburban Catholic Conference juniors \u2014 both around 10 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals on a team that went 29-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our connection on the court is great, we\u2019re always aware of each other,\u201d Briggs said.<\/p>\n
When she returned from Lithuania, off a 10-point, 10-rebound game against Iceland, she reached Rifenburg to grab some dinner at Chipotle.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and Bridget go there all the time, post-practice, postgame,\u201d said Briggs, who like Rifenburg is trying flag football this fall for the Redwings.<\/p>\n
Their unity is kind of ironic. Kilbride said that as the best players on their respective middle-school teams, Briggs and Rifenburg went at each other hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came in as these sworn enemies,\u201d the coach said, \u201cbut have become great friends and teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n
With returning starting point guard Ava Mersinger, a junior, Rifenburg and Briggs look to translate what they\u2019ve learned the past three seasons to this year\u2019s team, which returns nine players.<\/p>\n
Freshman regulars on a 2023 Class 4A runner-up, Briggs and Rifenburg look to lead a cohesive, hardworking unit deep into the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo drama,\u201d said Rifenburg, who Kilbride said was voted by teammates last season as Benet\u2019s hardest worker.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the last three years we\u2019ve had really good senior leadership, and I\u2019ve been able to watch that happen. So being able to implement it for the underclassmen and being able to have that same energy (is a goal),\u201d Rifenburg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is always state,\u201d Briggs said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think me and Bridget are very focused on that part, but also I think we care a lot for our team in general. Our teammates are amazing, we\u2019re very close friends with all of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think the goal is to have a great senior season but also be the senior leaders our teammates need us to be so we can have the best overall season possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benet\u2019s Emma Briggs shoots over Naperville North\u2019s Samantha Kelly during last season\u2019s Class 4A Benet Regional championship game.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,36508,6478,10423,32903],"class_list":{"0":"post-206437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-benet-academy","10":"tag-girls-basketball","11":"tag-high-schools","12":"tag-prep-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114951475948466861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}