Glenbard North eliminates Glenbard East
More often than not, a team isn’t going to get a big lead in a postseason basketball contest and be able to put it on cruise control the rest of the way.
Wednesday night’s Class 4A Proviso East regional semifinal between Glenbard North, seeded fifth in the Schaumburg sectional, and ninth-seeded Glenbard East was a game that went down to the wire.
In the end it was the Panthers who got the rebound, the free throw, the defensive stop or the basket when they absolutely had to have it, and the team prevailed 55-54.
Glenbard North (15-11) returns to Maywood for a 7:30 p.m. Friday regional final showdown against the top-seeded regional host Pirates.
“I thought the last two minutes we executed and got stops at the defensive end,” said Panthers coach Joe Larson. “When it’s us and Glenbard East, it’s always going to be a battle. And we made some big free throws down the stretch.”
With just 24.7 seconds left to play, Glenbard North’s Trevor Hackett sank two free throws to put his team up 53-50. About seven seconds after that, Glenbard East’s Tahron Harvey hit for a bucket to cut the lead to one. The Rams called a timeout.
Glenbard North inbounded the ball and Justin Jackson was fouled and he sank a pair of free throws to make it 55-52.
The Rams’ Bryant Westbrooks fought his way through the lane for a layup that made it 55-54, but Glenbard North successfully killed the remaining 2.4 seconds.
Troy Jackson led Glenbard North in scoring with 11 points and 7 rebounds, including some clutch ones late in the game.
“Early in the game I was in foul trouble and I said to myself that I need you to rebound. I was trying to get every single rebound at the end,” Troy Jackson said.
Chavares Flanigan and Josh Fleming each had 10 points for the Panthers. Marvin Grant-Clark shared game-high scoring honors with Harvey, also getting 14 points for the Rams (14-12).
Glenbard East coach Scott Miller said free throws hurt the Rams. The team went 12 of 19 for the game. Six of those misses came in the third and fourth quarters.
“It came down to the little things. In the fourth quarter we got the stops, but we missed a ton of layups. There was like five, six shots in the middle of the fourth that we just couldn’t put in,” he said.
Miller said he was proud of what is team accomplished this season.
“We had a rough stretch coming out of Christmas. It would have been easy for the kids to fold,” he said.
As for Glenbard North, it cleared a big hurdle with Glenbard East. Now the Panthers face another big hurdle Friday night, one of the Chicago area’s power teams year in and year out.
“We’re approaching it with confidence and preparation. We’ll prepare real well tomorrow at practice, it will be our only opportunity. We’ll be ready to go,” Larson said.