Waubonsie Valley answers Metea Valley's challenge
Waubonsie Valley basketball coach Andrew Schweitzer got what he was looking for.
A response to adversity by his boys.
The Warriors won their eighth straight game to start the season by countering Metea Valley's 12-0 second-half run that cut a 15-point lead to 3.
Waubonsie Valley (8-0, 2-0) adjusted and beat the visiting Mustangs 52-39 in the DuPage Valley Conference game in Aurora. Metea dropped to 4-3, 1-1.
"I'll be honest, we haven't been in that much adversity this year," Schweitzer said. "As a coach, that's what you want to see. You want to see the kids respond to those types of moments."
Dunks by Waubonsie's Tre Blissett and Moses Wilson helped the Warriors build a 36-21 lead with 2:15 left to play in the third quarter.
Over the next 3 minutes, 45 seconds the players who Schweitzer called Metea's "three-headed monster" - forwards Jake Nosek and Will Ashford and point guard James Parker - cut that lead to 36-33 at 6:30 of the fourth quarter.
Schweitzer called a timeout, and once back on the court Waubonsie guard Tyreek Coleman scored on a runner, Wilson hit a 3 and Coleman stole the ball and scored again to start a 13-2 run of their own.
Coleman said the coach's message was: slow the game down.
"We can't get sped up to their pace, we've got to play our game," said Coleman, a 6-foot-1 guard.
"We knew they were going to come out on a run, that's a part of basketball, it's a wave. They came out, they hit us, now it's about what you do afterward," he said.
Wilson led all scorers with 19 points, Blissett adding 13. The 6-5 Blissett atop Waubonsie's 1-2-2 half-court ball press defense, plus Wilson at 6-4 and both with plenty of wingspan and hops, helped force Metea into 5 first-quarter turnovers as the Warriors bolted to a 16-5 lead.
"That's one of our main goals, we just try and play defense, keep our hands up. That leads to fast break points. That's how we execute, just get teams frustrated like that," said Wilson, who shot 7-for-9 on the night, 3-for-4 from 3.
Metea started chipping away in the second quarter, pulling within 18-14 early.
"We're like, it's just the first quarter, we know we can come back from this," said Nosek, who scored 11 points, followed by Ashford with 9.
"So we just kind of worked as a team, worked together, coaches and players included, and we just knew that we had to fight and come out. We came out hot and played well."
Real well, until Schweitzer's perfectly timed timeout settled his team down.
"Give them credit," said Mustangs coach Isaiah Davis, "they got timely stops and made big buckets when they needed it. We had our opportunities and just came up a little short tonight."