'Justice served' as Richmond, Waukegan win

Thanks to an overturned suspension that came about 48 hours before tip, Waukegan star forward Jereme Richmond got to play basketball on Wednesday night.

In the meantime, his teammates played the way they would have had to play had he not.

The second-seeded Bulldogs got a total team effort - double figures from three other players besides Richmond and a stepped-up defensive game - to run past No. 3 Zion-Benton 70-64 in front of a spirited standing-room-only crowd in the semifinals of the Waukegan sectional, held at the school's old East Campus gym.

The victory not only avenged an intense regular season home loss to Zion-Benton in February, it also propelled the Bulldogs (23-4) into Friday's sectional title game against No. 4 Warren, which knocked off top-seeded Lake Forest on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Zion-Benton, which advanced to the Class 4A state title game last season, closes the books on a 25-7 campaign.

"Before we knew that Jereme was going to play, we knew that we were going to have to play extra hard," said Waukegan guard Colin Nickerson, who rolled up a game-high 23 points, including two 3-pointers. "But having Jereme gave us way more confidence. When he announced at practice that he was going to get to play, everyone just blew up. A lot of cheering."

Richmond, a junior who has already committed to Illinois, was initially suspended for this game because he was tagged with 2 technical fouls in last Friday's regional championship game against Fremd. He got his second technical for hanging on the rim after a dunk. Getting 2 technicals in a game results in an automatic ejection and a suspension for the following game, per IHSA rules.

But after reviewing tape of the game, the IHSA ruled that Richmond's dunk hanging was not done in an unsportsmanlike manner. And late Monday, the association lifted his suspension.

Against Zion-Benton, Richmond scored 15 points, including two 3-pointers and three straight free throws down the stretch that helped seal the deal.

The Zee-Bees had cut an 11-point early fourth-quarter deficit to just one point with about 4 minutes left to play. But that's when Richmond and his teammates started hitting free throws and tightening up their defense. The Bulldogs held Zion-Benton to just two buckets in the final minutes that the game was hanging in the balance.

"We stayed focused late in the game," Richmond said. "We worked so hard this season to be in this position right now, we didn't want to let it go."

The Bulldogs, who got 15 points from Aaron Johnson and 13 points from Quan Conner, also didn't want to waste the dramatic turn of events that fell in their favor regarding the suspension.

"Justice was served," Richmond said. "My teammates really supported me through the whole thing. They played great tonight. I think it's a great sign that we won this game."

Meanwhile, it was a bad sign for the Zee-Bees that their shooting suddenly went from hot to cold in the fourth quarter.

They hit 58 percent of their field goal attempts in the first half but connected on only 32 percent in the fourth quarter.

"They played hard defense the whole game and we did, too. It's just that they were hitting their shots, and we weren't," said Zion-Benton center Markus Yarbrough, who scored 15 points, one of four players in double figures for the Zee-Bees.

"I don't want to say it wasn't our night, but-They were just hitting everything."

Zion-Benton also got a team-high 16 points from Quintrell Love, 13 points from Lenzell Smith and 10 points from Ronald Steward.

"It was a good game, I just keep thinking about what we could've done differently," said Smith, a junior guard who has already committed to Ohio State. "But it's hard to process everything right now. I'm still trying to take all this in. It's hard."