Libertyville battles past Maine West

At several points in the Warrior Classic boys basketball Thanksgiving tournament finale between Libertyville and host Maine West on Saturday night, it looked as though the visiting Wildcats were going to pull away and win the game easily.

Each time, though, Maine West was able to fight back. But the Warriors were only able to turn one of their scoring runs into a lead, which came in the second quarter, and it didn't last very long.

Libertyville was able to find a way to hold Maine West off at every chance for a 49-46 win, giving the Wildcats the tournament championship.

"They were gambling a lot defensively," Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil said of Maine West. "I was happy the way our kids persevered. It wasn't pretty, but I'll take it."

Offensively Libertyville (4-0) was led by senior guards and all-tournament selections Ellis Matthews (16 points), and Griffin Pils (15 points). It was the team's defensive effort, though, that Bogumil chose to focus on afterward.

"Our half-court offense wasn't very good this whole tournament, except for the first game," Bogumil said. "We've gotten a lot of stuff just off our defense. That's been good. We've kept teams down around 40 (points) the last three games."

Every time the Wildcats needed to come up with a big stop, they seemed to be able to do so.

"We stepped up on defense and got a lot of steals," Matthews said. "We were smart with the ball on offense, too. We just put all of our defense together, and did a good job."

Maine West (2-2) found a hot hand in senior guard Kevin Garcia, who came off the bench to score a game-high 22 points, including four 3-pointers.

"He definitely is one of our better shooters," Maine West coach Erik McNeill said. "He had a tough night in our last game, but he battled back."

Garcia scored 19 of his points in the second half.

"It's not hard when you have coach telling you to keep your head up, and to just keep shooting," Garcia said of coming off a poor shooting night. "He has faith in me to keep shooting the ball."

Senior guard Connor Hart was an all-tournament selection for Maine West, he finished Saturday's game with 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Junior guard Tom Kukec had 7 points for the Warriors, and Matt Finnander had 2 points and 9 rebounds.

Libertyville's Luke Mathewson had 4 points and 8 rebounds.