Metea Valley ends drought with win at Neuqua Valley
Metea Valley coach Matt Walpole sipped from a cup of water before giving the Mustangs his postgame address. It was like they'd escaped the desert.
Ending a six-game losing streak in a Tuesday game moved up three hours to avoid the real cold stuff, visiting Metea Valley dealt Neuqua Valley a 57-53 DuPage Valley Conference loss in Naperville.
"We've been in a position to win games in the fourth quarter, we just haven't done enough to scratch out a win," Walpole said. "And we almost didn't do enough tonight. We had a period of time where we had 2, 3 turnovers in a row, but I was proud of the guys for pushing past that."
Neuqua Valley (9-15, 1-3) held Metea scoreless more than three minutes while Mark Gronowski and John Poulakidas assembled a 7-0 run to tie the score at 53-53 with 40.7 seconds left.
Shaking off a 3-point miss from the top of the key and then a foot-shuffling travel call - Metea's third turnover in four possessions - Mustangs guard Myles Leavy laced a 3 from the top left for a 56-53 lead with 27 seconds left.
Neuqua missed a 3-point shot and Metea's Ethan Helwig made a free throw with 7.9 seconds left as Metea (10-12, 2-3) rediscovered the win column.
Helwig scored 17 points to pace the Mustangs, who led 42-41 after three quarters. Leavy scored 13 points, making 3 fourth-quarter 3s after going 0-5 beyond the arc the first three quarters.
"The first half I was off, but the second half my coach trusted me, he gave me the ball in the spots I wanted to. So, putting their trust in me I have to come up big, you know what I mean?" Leavy asked.
Mustangs junior forward Kymari McBride, off the bench for 5 points and 6 rebounds, knew what he meant.
"We get hit with adversity a lot and coach is always telling us we've got to fight through adversity, keep an even keel and tonight it brought us over the top," he said.
Neuqua led all of the first quarter and most of the second, up 24-23 at halftime.
Two plays typified Neuqua's afternoon. Metea's Colin Szczesny, in a brief but effective flurry, scored off a steal, was fouled, then put back his own missed free throw late in the second quarter. In the third the Mustangs' Tahj Morgan scored on a third-chance putback.
Neuqua statistics had Metea grabbing 34 rebounds to the Wildcats' 24.
"We never get beat on the boards, so if we get beat on the boards they definitely out-hustled us," said Neuqua coach Todd Sutton.
It also seemed like that to Poulakidas, who led all scorers with 23 points behind four 3s and 7-of-8 foul shooting. Teammates Connor Davis scored 9 points and Hank Pelter 7.
"And at the end of the day whoever wants it more is going to be the victor at the end, and they showed it," Poulakidas said.