Wheeling 54, Rolling Meadows 49

It took a while, but the aura of the athletic legends in Wheeling's gym Friday night finally rubbed off on the home team.

On a night when five legends of Wheeling sports were inducted as the second class into its Hall of Fame, the boys basketball team didn't seem to latch on to the levity of it all until the fourth quarter.

But when they did, boy, did they ever. Paced by guard Chris McClellan, the Wildcats shot a perfect 6-of-6 from the floor in the period and 10-of-13 at the free throw line in rallying from a near game-long deficit for a 54-49 Mid-Suburban East win over a Rolling Meadows team that didn't look like it came in playing its best ball of the season.

The Cats (10-10, 2-6) erased their game-long deficit as Michael Zimmer nailed a 3, Michael Barton performed his specialty, thievery, and scored on a subsequent breakaway and James Kurtz did the same. It gave Wheeling its first lead since the first quarter to complete a 12-point run.

But it wasn't the shooting the Cats pointed to as they climbed back to .500 overall.

"We took care of the ball," said McClellan of reducing a turnover tendency that has plagued the Cats. Plus, "We made our free throws down the stretch." It was all keyed by a switch to a 1-3-1 zone that Meadows never solved.

After Kyle Gaedele (18 points), Ted Metzger (10) and Ty Kirk (9) shot the Mustangs (11-8, 4-4) into their steady 5-to-8-point lead, they seemed to forget how to play against that zone, to head coach Kevin Katovich's dismay.

"We did an absolutely terrible job of executing down the stretch," which was frustrating, he added, because of "the amount of time we put in getting ready for this game."

Meadows did stay close in the fourth on the shooting of Ben Sabal, Kevin Serna, Metzger and Gaedele, but Wheeling's defense won the battle more often than not. It was all very gratifying for coach Lou Wool.

"We really needed to win to recognize Hall of Fame day," he said, which honored Wheeling legends Jim Nagel, Mark Newman, Keith Vernon, Kristin Stoudt-Hill and the late Bob Schulze. And the Cats did it with the team's trademark, he said, "Heart and hustle.

"We really wanted to get to .500," said Wool. With five regular-season games left, "we just want to get on a roll."