Fate tips basketball Glenbard West's way

Only one entity was going to decide the winner in Friday night's West Suburban Conference Silver Division contest between Downers Grove North and visiting Glenbard West: the Fickle Finger of Roundball Fate.

If Tom Wengren's 25-foot shot at the buzzer fell through the hoop, Downers Grove North would be celebrating a thrilling last-second victory. If the ball didn't drop through, Glenbard West would escape with a gutty come-from-behind triumph.

The ball took two laps around the rim before deciding that fate would favor the Hilltoppers as it finally fell off to give the visitors a 47-46 victory.

"It was in," said a relieved Glenbard West coach Tim Hoder. "It's just a crazy game. They did a great job running a play, we did a good job challenging it, and it just didn't go in."

The final play epitomized the entire game as the teams traded mini-runs throughout. As it turned out, the crucial spurt came in the final 90 seconds with the Trojans (7-9, 0-5) holding a 44-39 lead.

That's when Glenbard West sophomore guard Jeff Levesque sliced open the defense for two layups to pull the Hilltoppers (6-9, 1-3) within a point. Downers Grove North was able to stay in front and led 46-43 on Wengren's layup with 31 seconds to play. Glenbard West answered with Michael Mache's two free throws, and after a Downers Grove North miss from the stripe, Levesque brought the ball upcourt with 10 seconds to play.

Sensing a trap was waiting at halfcourt, he hesitated just long enough for Egan Montgomery to break free along the baseline and hit him in stride with a perfect pass that Montgomery turned into an uncontested layup and the game's final points.

"It was a nice look by Egan. He recognized the trap was coming and flashed to the open spot," Hoder said. "Jeff did a great job of reading it and getting rid of the ball before the trap came."

Montgomery's basket gave the Hilltoppers just their third lead of the night, the first coming at 5-2 and the second at 39-38 on Evan Fischl's driving bucket with six minutes to play. Between those two points, the Trojans, behind the shooting of Wengren, Ross Johnson and D.J. Cieniawa, and some inspired hustle off the bench from Tyler Mason, seemed in control and led 22-14 in the second quarter before Glenbard West's Deshawn Elliott trimmed the Downers Grove North lead to 24-22 at the half with a buzzer-beater that did fall through.

For the game's first 12 minutes, you had to be named Mache in order to score a field goal for Glenbard West as twins Michael and Matthew combined for all five Hilltoppers baskets to that point. Michael Mache sparked Glenbard West's second-quarter comeback with 11 points, including 6 straight free throws in an 83-second span.

"Any Friday night win in this conference feels great," Hoder said. "They're not all going to be masterpieces, but we'll take it."