Living postseason on the edge comes back to haunt Wildcats
Neuqua Valley's boys basketball players never billed themselves as the comeback kids, but with the start of the playoffs that's the role the Wildcats assumed.
Tuesday night they ran out of comebacks.
Trailing by as many as 16 points, Neuqua Valley fell short in a 64-59 loss to Dundee-Crown in the Class 4A Northern Illinois University supersectional.
In all five playoff games the Wildcats trailed, four of them deep into the fourth quarter. Somehow they always found a way to rally.
Against Dundee-Crown no such rally came their way.
A Neuqua Valley team that rolled through the regular season with complete dominance couldn't get that same momentum going in the playoffs - especially on Tuesday.
"They made shots when they needed to," Wildcats junior Dwayne Evans said of the Chargers. "Usually we come back in the second half. We've been a second-half team all year. Whenever we'd start to make a run, they'd hit a 3 or they'd get a block."
Neuqua Valley's disturbing postseason trend started in the regional semifinals against Benet. The Wildcats trailed by 3 points with 1:09 left in regulation before forcing overtime, then trailed by 5 points with 1:39 left in the extra period before pulling out a 59-57 win.
Claiming a regional crown also was no easy task. Batavia led by 2 points at the half and after three quarters, and then led 64-57 before the Wildcats made another stunning rally.
It wasn't near as dire in the sectional semifinals. Plainfield North nursed a 19-18 second-quarter lead before Neuqua Valley unleashed a 23-2 run en route to a 20-point win.
The nerves frayed again, however, when Naperville Central held a 10-point third-quarter lead in the sectional final. Neuqua Valley recovered for a 62-55 victory.
Living on the edge won a second straight sectional title for the Wildcats but it also wound up costing them their first trip to the state semifinals.
"We probably should have lost the Benet game for sure, down 5 with a minute to go," said Wildcats coach Todd Sutton. "Batavia was kind of a miracle comeback. You can only do that so often. Let's face it, that comes down to defense. If you defend, other teams can't score. We broke down when it counted on defense."
That's the strangest thing about what happened to Neuqua Valley in the playoffs. Gone was the team that allowed an average of only 38 points in a four-game stretch late in the regular season, a stretch that included an amazing 70-31 victory over Downers Grove South.
That handcuffing defense disappeared in the playoffs, but the offense picked up the slack until they ran into the Chargers, who held the Wildcats to 25 percent first-half shooting as they quickly fell behind.
"Poor shooting obviously got us in trouble," Sutton said. "Poor shot selection, and (Dundee-Crown's) great defense had a lot to do with it."
The Chargers' fourth-quarter composure wavered, but not enough to threaten the outcome. Four players combined for 11-of-14 free-throw shooting in the final 1:41.
"I had read that they made a lot of comebacks," said Dundee-Crown coach Lance Huber. "We reminded the guys they're not real worried, they've been in this situation before and they have the confidence they can come back. We wanted to make sure we were ready for that."
Dundee-Crown was definitely ready.
For Neuqua Valley, meanwhile, there was no way to be ready for this kind of ending.
kschmit@dailyherald.com