Indian Creek comes back to down St. Edward
Unfortunately for St. Edward, basketball games last for more than one quarter.
After an impressive showing during the first 8 minutes and a 23-13 advantage, Indian Creek outscored the Green Wave 51-37 during the final 24 minutes in rallying for a 64-60 victory in the third place game of the 10th Annual Westminster Christian Boys Thanksgiving Tournament in Elgin Saturday night.
"We are a very young team, playing a lot of sophomores and juniors," said Green Wave coach PJ White. "Right now, we are too young to fight through things when it gets tough. Because of our youngness we are not consistent. I like that we didn't quit at the end. Indian Creek is a very well-coached team."
Led by Kelvin Cortez-Harvey, who reached the 1,000 career point plateau in Friday night's loss to Westminster Christian, the Green Wave jump started to a 10-point advantage after one quarter of play.
Cortez-Harvey was 4-for-4 from the field and scored 10 points as the Wave compiled a double-digit lead after the initial quarter.
Only connecting on 1-of-10 shots from the floor in the second quarter, St. Edward was out scored by the Timberwolves 12-7 and led by 5, 30-25, at intermission.
Indian Creek kept whittling away at the Wave lead in the third quarter and took its first advantage of the game 44-43 as Trevor Guerra buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer to end the third quarter.
St. Edward regained the lead at 52-49 as Cortez-Harvey, who was fouled on a 3-point attempt, connected on all 3 free throws to give the Green Wave (2-2) a 3-point advantage with 4:08 left in the contest.
Indian Creek (3-1), which made 8-of-8 from the free throw line in the last 2 minutes including 6 straight from Guerra, responded with a 13-2 run and led by 8, 62-54, with 38 ticks left.
A made 3-pointer and 3 more free throws from Cortez-Harvey cut the Timberwolves' deficit to 62-60 with 9 seconds remaining but the Wave couldn't get any closer.
"We played nervous and were rushing our offense in the first quarter and St. Edward came out very disciplined and ready to play," said Indian Creek coach Joe Piekarz. 'We settled down, made some defensive adjustments on Cortez-Harvey and played very well in the last three quarters."
Cortez-Harvey, with a 3-for-6 effort from beyond the arc, led the Green Wave with 28 points to go along with 3 assists. Steve Poremba added 9 with a pair of treys for St. Edward.
Guerra, who dealt out 4 assists and had 3 steals, led Indian Creek with 27 points including 3 treys. Lou Faivre scored 13 and Nolan Govig added 11 for the winners.