Yorkville denies Kaneland
One half away from a second Plano Classic championship appearance in three years, the wheels came off for Kaneland Thursday night in the final 16 minutes of a 61-50 loss to Yorkville.
The problems actually began on the final possession of the first half when Yorkville’s Derek Piszczek drained a long 3-pointer just ahead of the buzzer to trim Kaneland’s halftime lead to 27-25.
The Foxes (10-2), in the title game for the first time since 2002, quickly went ahead in the third quarter on another Piszczek 3-pointer and never looked back.
“We were flat,” Kaneland coach Brian Johnson said. “I thought we came out flat to start the second half. They just put it on us. We couldn’t recover, we couldn’t react.”
Kaneland leading scorer Marcel Neil picked up his third and fourth fouls in a 15-second span midway through the third quarter with the Knights down 34-31.
“He’s trying to play hard and play aggressive,” Johnson said “He makes a couple fouls and has to sit on the bench. Maybe I should have got him out when he had 3. We need him on the flor. and need him on the floor a lot to be successful.”
In the fourth quarter Johnson picked up a technical foul arguing a non goaltending call on Dan Miller’s layup attempt. The Knights were down 44-41 at the time, but Piszczek hit the 2 technical free throws to start a 10-0 run that put the game away.
Sometimes a team gets an emotional boost after a technical foul but the opposite was true for the Knights. They missed four straight free throws including a pair of front ends of 1-and-1s.
“I thought it was a goaltending,” Johnson said. “The referee saw it a different way. I’m obviously pretty animated all the time and sometimes a little too aggressive and at that moment in time it was a little too aggressive and I deserved it and got it.”
Kaneland hit just 36.5 percent of its shots from the field and 56 percent at the line.
Yorkville used a 2-2-1 full court press that didn’t create too many turnovers (14) but seemed to keep the Knights out of sync.
“We couldn’t get in a rhythm once we got it past half court,” Johnson said. “I thought our shot selection was extremely poor tonight.”
Yorkville used 11 of 18 shooting in the second half to finish over 50 percent for the game at 19 of 37.
“It’s not like we gave up, we played our hardest to the end,” Kaneland senior Tyler Heinle said. “We weren’t alive in our press at all. They ran right past us. We have to get better on our press.”
Despite sitting for stretches in foul trouble Neil led Kaneland with 14 points. Thomas Williams added 11 and eighth man Bryan VanBogaert chipped in a pair of offensive putbacks for 4 points that helped the Knights lead at halftime.
Drew David, who led Kaneland with 16 points Tuesday, also got in foul trouble and was held to a lone fourth-quarter 3-pointer.
“If their best player doesn’t get four fouls that’s a different ballgame,” Yorkville coach Dan McGuire said. “Him getting four fouls I thought was the turning point of the game.”
Stephen Jones (15 points), Piszczek (14) and Brandon Homes (10) all reached double figures for the Foxes.
Second seed Yorkville will play No. 5 Belvidere for the championship at 8:30 p.m. Thursday while No. 3 Kaneland (8-4) will face top seed Rockford Christian for third place at 7 p.m.
“We have to come out mentally prepared,” Johnson said.