No stopping Waukegan in 4A sectional semi

When the Stevenson student section started chanting at Waukegan star center Jereme Richmond on Tuesday night, he had zero points and maybe a rebound or two.

And this was well into the second quarter.

They were screaming, "Over-rated! Over-rated!"

Richmond, who will be playing at the University of Illinois next season, went on to score 12 points on the night in helping top-seeded Waukegan cruise to a 68-52 victory over No. 5 Stevenson in the Class 4A sectional semifinal played on its own court.

But had he stayed scoreless, Richmond still would have gotten plenty of kudos from his coach. Waukegan coach Ron Ashlaw says that Richmond is completely, well, "under-rated, under-rated" when it comes to taking one for the team.

"If he had no points tonight, he'd get a game ball," Ashlaw said.

That's because while Richmond got pushed and knocked around by a Stevenson defense that was focused on stopping him, his teammates were able to weather his scoring drought with flying colors.

Waukegan, with just 2 first-half points from Richmond, took a 30-25 into the locker room at halftime. And even when the Bulldogs opened the second half with a 9-0 run that essentially put the game away, they did it with only 2 points from Richmond.

"Jereme was getting quadruple-teamed, quintuple-teamed, whatever," Ashlaw said. "I haven't seen a kid work harder in the post all year, kicking out to his teammates. It was very selfless play on his part. He takes on the defense and makes the defense guard him by the basket, and that makes life easier for our other players."

One beneficiary was senior guard Quan Connor, who scored a game-high 20 points for Waukegan, which improves to 24-4 and advances to Friday's sectional championship game against the winner of today's semifinal between No. 2 Deerfield and No. 13 Schaumburg.

"The thing that's good about our team is that everybody can do something on the court for us," said Connor, whose 3-pointer just seconds into the second half got the ball rolling on the Bulldogs' big opening run.

Waukegan's lead eventually ballooned to as many as 21 points in the third quarter.

"If Jereme's not having a good game, if I'm not having a good game, someone else will have a good game," Connor said. "We're really balanced."

The Bulldogs, who are averaging 77 points per game in the tournament, put three players in double-figures against Stevenson - Connor, Richmond and sophomore guard Akeem Springs, who also scored 12 points.

On top of that, Aaron Johnson added 9 points.

"I'm really proud of my guys," Richmond said. "They really helped me out tonight. That's why we're a good team."

Defense also makes Waukegan good.

The Bulldogs forced 18 Stevenson turnovers with their trapping, pressure defense. Several times, those turnovers led directly to easy layups and dunks, which negated the solid defense Stevenson played most of the night, particularly in the first half.

"We battled, we really did, but it's tough to come in here. It's a tough environment and once they started turning the heat up with their defense and got easy layups, it got really tough," said Stevenson senior forward Nate Johnson, who scored 15 points and was the only player on his team in double figures. "Defensively, I thought we did a good job, especially in the first half. We were right there. But the second half was a different story. We just made too many mistakes."

Stevenson, which got scoring from 9 players, including 7 points apiece from Mark Swanson and sophomore guard Michael Fleming, wraps up its season with a 21-8 record.

"I'm proud of our guys and the way they performed in a very tough environment," Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose said. "But you just get a little tired against a team like this."