Niles North comeback stuns Schaumburg
A trip to the Class 4A boys basketball Elite Eight was starting to look pretty sweet when Schaumburg opened a 16-point lead early in the third quarter of Friday’s New Trier sectional championship game.
But Niles North decided it was going to do more than just end up unhappy to be at this stage for the first time in program history.
The fourth-seeded Vikings frantically rallied and eventually took their first lead midway through the fourth quarter. That set up a frenetic back-and-forth finish that had the big crowd in the old Winnetka gym rocking.
And Niles North couldn’t wildly celebrate its first sectional title and a 53-52 victory until a 3-pointer at the final buzzer narrowly missed the mark for Schaumburg.
“I thought we were in control the majority of the game and I thought we’d be able to pull it out,” said Schaumburg sophomore Jimmy Lundquist, whose 12 points included a 3 with nine seconds left that ended up setting the final score. “Defensively we were holding (Abdel) Nader and doing what we wanted. I thought we had them.”
The 6-foot-6 Nader had 23 points on 7-for-25 shooting but his fourth assist to Andre Shaw for a right-corner 3 put the Vikings (24-6) ahead to stay at 50-47 with 1:24 left. They’ll head to Waukegan for Tuesday’s 7:30 p.m. supersectional against Warren (29-3), which beat Mundelein 63-55 for the Barrington sectional title.
Schaumburg (18-12), the 15th seed, saw a second straight postseason run end in the sectional final after it held leads of 25-10 midway through the first half and 36-20 on sophomore Kyle Bolger’s drive 2:21 into the second half.
“I thought for sure we had it,” said Schaumburg senior guard Javon McDonald, who had 15 points. “We were in pretty good control and everything was going our way. We were doing a good job on their best guy and everything was clicking.”
McDonald made all 10 of his first-half free throws and Schaumburg was 15-for-16 as it took a 34-20 lead to intermission on Mark Bielanski’s buzzer-beating 3. Niles North was just 5-for-24 from the field.
“We talked at halftime that I didn’t think we played hard enough and I thought we played real lazy,” said Niles North coach Glenn Olson.
“We picked up our intensity in the second half,” Nader said. “We were playing too much with our hands and we started playing better ‘D.’”
The result of the Vikings’ pressure was 12 of Schaumburg’s 21 turnovers in the final 12 minutes.
“We gave them some energy and they got back in the game,” McDonald said.
“We needed to do a better job in the second half of allowing our offense and our execution to take us to the end of the game,” said Schaumburg coach Matt Walsh. “That’s a credit to their defensive pressure. It sped us up.”
A drive by Mychael Henry with 4:31 left capped a 19-5 tear to give Niles North its first lead at 45-44. Schaumburg regained it at 47-45 on 2 free throws by Lundquist at 3:50.
But turnovers on three straight possessions led to Nader’s tying score off 1 of his 12 rebounds and his delivery to Shaw for the go-ahead 3.
Bolger’s baseline drive cut it to 50-49 at 0:53. Niles North got 2 free throws by John King and one by Nader to make it 53-49 at 0:19.
After Lundquist’s 3, Malachi Nix missed 2 free throws with eight seconds left and Christian Spandiary (9 points) kicked his 12th rebound out to McDonald. He fired the ball up to Bielanski, who calmly pump-faked Nader past him and fired a shot that was on line but rimmed out.
“I have so much confidence in him and he almost made it,” McDonald said. “They got very lucky.”