Glenbard East sweats out victory over WW South
Glenbard East had a great first half Friday night in the Class 4A Willowbrook regional final.
Wheaton Warrenville South nearly had as good a second half.
Leading by 17 at halftime, the top-seeded Rams withstood a furious WW South comeback to win 56-47 and advance to the Neuqua Valley sectional semifinals Tuesday against Oswego East.
"They weren't going to give up and neither were we, and it was a great battle," Rams senior Shawn Havenga said.
"We can walk away knowing that we left it out there," WW South coach Mike Healy added. "Playing the No. 3 team in the state and you're down 17 at half, it's pretty easy to say, hey, we won 20 and had a good season. I didn't think that would happen. I knew our guys would do something."
The DuPage Valley Conference-champion Rams (26-1) held the second-place Tigers (20-8) to just 14 first-half points, 12 of them by junior Reilly O'Toole. Senior Lee Skinner set the tone for the Rams by blocking WW South's first 2 shots of the game.
"Defensively, we played about as well as we could play in the first half," Rams coach Scott Miller said. "We didn't give any open looks, we rebounded very well."
The Tigers trimmed the margin to 11 when Greg McAndrew beat the third-quarter buzzer with a 45-foot heave.
"We knew it wasn't over," Havenga said. "When he made that I was shocked. I knew we had a tough fourth quarter coming up."
Havenga was right. When a Will Dolatowski 3-pointer cut the lead to 6 points with 4:07 to play, Glenbard East called timeout and chose to pull the ball out and wait out the Tigers.
"We felt they were fatigued and we could rely on our free-throw shooters," Miller said. "We shoot the ball very well from the free-throw line, so we figured let's make them come out and chase us for a little bit."
The strategy worked, as the Rams made 9 of 12 free throws the rest of the way, and WW South never got closer than 51-47 with 20 seconds left.
"The second half they took it to us," Miller said. "We were a little tentative. The shots were a little short. We didn't crash the glass quite as well as we did in the first half. You've got to give Wheaton South a lot of credit. They battled back and played a heck of a game."
O'Toole finished with a game-high 21 points.
"Reilly played a great game," Healy said. "He's a very intelligent athlete. He's got a state championship under his belt (in football), a couple of all-conference and All-Areas."
Johnny Hill led Glenbard East with 19 points to go with 6 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. Point guard Zach Miller, the DVC player of the year, added 14 points and 5 assists.
The Rams set a school record for wins in a season and won their fourth regional championship in six years.
"It never gets old," coach Miller said as his players cut down the net.