Addison Trail gets the roll against Hinsdale South

Facing a tie game with 24 seconds left to play, Connor Palesch and the Addison Trail boys basketball team had the final play drawn up to perfection.

Palesch and the Blazers ran a play that would give them three looks at a shot. There was just one thing wrong.

"All of them weren't there," the senior said.

A sense of panic crept into Palesch.

"Just get to the rim, get to the rim, go, go," he said.

He did that, and, boy, did he make it count. Palesch drove down the right side of the paint, threw up a shot that rolled around the rim and dropped in to give Addison Trail a 52-50 West Suburban Conference Gold win over Hinsdale South. It's Addison Trail's (11-11, 1-5) first win in the conference.

"We've been in this situation two or three times," Addison Trail coach Brendan Lyons said. "We wanted to get a different look to Adem (Mehmeti). We thought they were really going to chase (Palesch). We thought we'd get Adem on their overplay, that didn't happen. Connor, learning from our mistakes in two previous games, just did what he need to do, took the basketball, strong to the rim and finished."

What was going through Palesch's head when he chucked up his shot?

"One, 'Please go in.' Two, at least hit the backboard and at least hit the rim," Palesch said.

But when the ball went in, both he and his teammates made sure not to get too amped up. After all, there were still 1.9 seconds on the clock.

"Honestly, I was thinking, 'Let's play defense real quick,'" Palesch said. "We said 'All right, let's go. We still got to play on defense, it still isn't (over).'"

Hinsdale South (14-5, 4-2) had enough time to get the ball down court and get one final shot off. Robert Barnes collected the inbound took a pair of dribbles, and launched a shot from just inside half court.

"I had faith in it," Hinsdale South's Zion Griffin said. "I felt like it was going in."

But the ball hit the front of the iron as time expired.

"It almost looked like it was going in," Palesch said. "It scared me a little bit."

Addison Trail kept up with Hinsdale South bucket for bucket late. John Daniels and Palesch combined to score 13 of the Blazers' 18 fourth-quarter points. So Daniels was half expecting the final shot to come to one of the two.

"I was hoping he was going to give the ball to me," Daniels said. "Turned out he didn't, but he went to the glass and as soon I saw him go, I ran my tail end off to the glass, just in case he missed it and got a tip in. The ball went in. I'm happy he made the shot so I didn't have to do that."

Addison Trail's defense was stingy throughout most of the game but was especially stout in the fourth quarter. Hinsdale South was limited to 4-of-11 shooting in the fourth.

"They played awesome," Hinsdale South coach Brett Moore said. "They did everything they had to do to beat us. Defensively, they did exactly what you do when you don't have the athletes to block our guys."

For the Blazers, that meant taking charges - five of them, to be specific. It's especially sweet for the players. When a player takes a charge, Addison Trail assistant coach Corby Howard gives them a Gatorade. If they pick up two in a game, Howard takes them out to Portillo's.

Do the Blazers merit a trip there after a strong defensive performance and their first conference win?

"I hope so," Palesch said with a laugh.