St. Charles East 74, Waubonsie Valley 72
Despite a furious fourth-quarter comeback, Waubonsie Valley's boys basketball team saw its share of the Upstate Eight Conference title slip away Friday night.
And the Warriors have themselves -- and St. Charles East -- to blame.
Playing with a renewed vigor in their final home game of the season, the Saints outscored Waubonsie Valley 38-22 in the middle two quarters while building a 17-point lead, then hung on for dear life down the stretch to pull out a 74-72 victory.
"It was a tough loss for them but a big win for us," said Saints coach Brian Clodi. "We're 8-3 in our second half (of the season) and two of the losses came in the last seconds to Burlington (Central) and Bartlett.
"We just wanted to do whatever we could to get a win here and go into the tournament."
While Neuqua Valley capped a 9-1 UEC season with a 90-42 blowout of Larkin on Friday, the Warriors (20-6), who had dropped a 73-58 decision to Elgin a week earlier, finished one game back of the Wildcats with an 8-2 mark.
"We didn't play with the urgency we needed in the first three quarters," said Warriors coach Steve Weemer. "I was proud of the way we fought at the end, but if we're going to make a run in the postseason, we've got to play for 32 minutes -- not for eight."
Employing a 1-3-1 zone defense, St. Charles East (13-13, 6-4) limited Waubonsie Valley to 2-of-13 shooting from the field in the second quarter. The subsequent 15-5 surge helped put the Saints on top 35-26 at halftime.
"I thought we played awesome in that second quarter," Clodi said.
"They had a great first half and we didn't have that sense of urgency to get things going," Weemer said. "They played like they wanted to win tonight and we didn't."
Senior Collin Pryor scored 8 of his game-high 27 points in the third quarter, as the Saints extended their lead to 17 at one point before settling for a 15-point advantage entering the final period.
Fueled by Justin Peaster's 24 points, Jelani Johnson's 17 and Josh Daniels' 10, the Warriors suddenly got red-hot, scoring 24 points during the first 5 minutes of the fourth quarter.
Two free throws from Daniels trimmed the Saints' lead to 69-67 with three minutes left.
Peaster nailed 2 of 3 foul shots to make it 73-72 with 1:14 remaining, but the Saints' Zach Scott added a free throw before Senechalle blocked a potential game-tying shot with 37 seconds left.
Waubonsie Valley, which made just 2 of its final 9 free-throw attempts, had another chance to tie the game after a foul was called on the Saints with five-tenths of a second left but missed both free throws.
"We knew they were going to make a run," Pryor said. "I think the story of our season has been us kind of letting up in the fourth quarter. But we kept our composure and maintained our strength tonight."
Ryan Suits added 12 points for the Saints, who begin Class 4A regional tournament action Wednesday against Elgin at Larkin.