Scouts honor: Rolling Meadows wins
Even if you’re a devout follower of Mid-Suburban League basketball, you probably don’t know who Mike Weingart is.
The 5-foot-7 senior doesn’t get a whole lot of playing time for Mid-Suburban East-leading Rolling Meadows, but he couldn’t be more valuable.
“He’s our inspirational leader,” according to starting point guard Brian Nelms. “Nobody gets beat up more in practice than he does.”
That’s because, week in and week out, he plays the role of the next opponent’s top guard. For Saturday night’s game at Jean Walker Field House at Prospect, in practice all week he played the role of Mike LaTulip, one of the MSL’s best guards.
Apparently, he and his scout-team charges did their jobs well. The Mustangs grabbed a two-game lead in the MSL East standings with their 67-59 win Saturday night over four-time defending division champ Prospect.
They blanked a foul-plagued LaTulip from the field after the first quarter and rallied from a deficit as wide as 23-10 after Prospect scored 8 straight down the stretch of the opening period on Devin O’Hara’s putback, Jack Landwehr’s jumper, Kevin Somogyi’s bucket on a feed from LaTulip and LaTulip’s fastbreak bucket.
“We just started out terribly,” said Nelms after Meadows’ first win at Prospect in seven years.
“Our guys settled down,” said Meadows coach Kevin Katovich. “I really like how we came out the last three quarters.”
During that span, Meadows cumulatively outscored Prospect 54-36.
“It wasn’t a monster comeback,” noted Prospect coach John Camardella. “It was methodical.”
And persistent. Meadows made the adjustments it had to, abandoning a match-up zone for man-to-man defense after LaTulip (11 points) and Brad Reibel (14 points) tore it up.
And the Mustangs found ways to get Tyler Gaedele (15 points) more involved, posting him up where he’s a tough matchup. He wound up having a feast at the free-throw line.
Nelms (17 points) took it from there for the Mustangs (11-5, 5-0), hitting 10 of 12 free throws in the final quarter and distributing the ball to Mike Dolan (10 points) for a couple of buckets. Mike Rose used his athleticism to ward off the Knights (9-6, 3-2) around the basket.
Once Meadows finally got the lead on an Eric Lowe free throw and 3-pointer in the third quarter, the Mustangs never gave it back.
“Nelms was steady,” Camardella said in praise after “That first quarter. I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” including a 23-13 lead.
“Our kids are real resilient,” Katovich said.
And they’re not about to relax with a 2-game lead halfway through the MSL East season. “Our motto is always, ‘What’s next?’”
What’s next? Count on Weingart, along with scout-teamers Austin Reed, Chase Larson, Adam Pavlakis and Matt Dennis, to help prepare Meadows.
“They did a great job of imitating (Prospect),” said Nelms.