Glenbrook South hangs on, ousts Warren

The thought was in the back of Jim Martinelli's mind.

Could it happen once again?

The Glenbrook South boys basketball team has had an up-and-down season. And during some of the downs, the Titans have had victories stolen from their grasp.

Late leads have turned into heartbreaking losses.

That's why Glenbrook South wasn't comfortable up by 10 points with two minutes left against host Warren in Class 4A regional semifinal action on Monday night in Gurnee.

But this time, the Titans extended their lead and pulled away for a 61-48 victory. Glenbrook South, the No. 17 seed, will face top-seeded Evanston tonight at Warren in the regional semifinals. Glenbrook South has already lost twice to Evanston this season.

"Sometimes at the end of games, we've kind of broken down," said Martinelli, who scored a game-high 18 points, including 10 points in the fourth quarter. "We'd give up open threes or we'd make mistakes and tonight we did good job of doing what we do best and defending.

"It was in my mind that they were going to come back. But we did a good job of closing out on shooters and rebounding."

Glenbrook South closed out the game with a 13-6 run. The Titans were clutch at the free throw line and connected on 9-of-13 fourth quarter free throws.

"Our fourth quarters haven't always been our best quarter, for a variety of reasons," Glenbrook South coach Ben Widner said. "It's something we've tried to emphasize all year and get better at. We've tried to be more confident and I think our guys just looked so confident in the fourth quarter tonight. In other games, a couple bad plays go against you and we would get the feeling like, 'Oh no." Our guys were tough tonight."

Glenbrook South, which is now 12-15 overall, has won 3 games in a row. The Titans also got double-figures from Matt Giannakopoulos and Dan Jenkins, who each had 13 points.

Warren closes out its season under first-year coach Jon Jasnoch with a 12-16 record.

"Once they got a lead, we kind of got away from what we wanted to do," Jasnoch said. "That has been something that has dogged us this year. When we get down, we sometimes try to do too much individually. Things don't usually go well when that happens and that's when their lead grew."

Warren was led in scoring by Maurice Chambers and Josh Pelland, who each finished with 11 points. Pelland was a spark off the bench.

"I knew we needed some energy and I just tried to bring some energy when I came off the bench and give us a lift," Pelland said. "But it's tough not to be able to win (at home) and to keep going. We're a really close team."