Boys basketball: Rolling Meadows falls to defending champs in Tosh quarterfinals
Bradley-bound guard Matthew Zobrist put on an offensive show Saturday afternoon with 29 points and 7 assists in York’s 50th annual Jack Tosh Holiday Classic quarterfinal against Rolling Meadows.
But the 6-foot-5 Zobrist also showed where his game has evolved most since last year in the matchup of the last two tourney champions. Zobrist limited Meadows’ 6-7 Marquette recruit Ian Militec to 13 points on 4-for-12 shooting and the defending champion Redbirds pulled away to a 71-61 victory in Elmhurst.
“He’s improved a ton and last year defense was his biggest weakness,” said Metamora coach Justin Dehm after his team’s 11th consecutive victory.
“Militec is a good player and he’s going to do big things at Marquette,” Zobrist said after shooting 12-for-16 from the field and 5-for-7 on 3s. “I wanted to be physical with him and not let him get into his shot. Since he’s a lefty I wanted to make him go right.”
Metamora (12-2) also got a big boost from 6-10 senior Jonah Funk with 25 points and 9 rebounds to advance to Monday’s 6:30 p.m. semifinal against Bolingbrook (12-2) and star sophomore Davion Thompson.
Meadows (11-2) got 17 points off the bench from senior Lazar Lazarevic on 7-for-11 shooting and 3-for-6 on 3s. It had an 8-game winning streak snapped and plays Lake Forest (8-4) at 6 p.m. Monday.
“Physically they’re bigger and stronger than us,” Meadows coach Kevin Katovich said after his team was outrebounded 26-16. “It seemed like we were a step slow on everything and it’s all because of them. Lazar kept us in the game and showed what he’s capable of.”
Zobrist had 21 points but Meadows led 36-35 when Jack Duffer found 6-8 Patrick Coen for a layup. Metamora responded with a 6-point run to take the lead for good.
A drive by Ryan Meyer got Meadows within 47-44 with 6:47 left. Zobrist hit a tough 3 to start a 15-4 burst to give Metamora its largest lead at 62-48 with three minutes left.
Zobrist had 5 assists in the final 4:30 with three for Funk dunks and another for a 3 by freshman Brady Jones.
“If guys are keying on me I can get kickouts fo Brady,” Zobrist said. “For a freshman he made some huge plays and Jonah was huge.”
Metamora shot 57.5% (27-for-47) from the field. Militec was 3-for-5 behind the arc and Meadows was 10-for-24.
“You have to be perfect to beat a team like them,” Katovich said. “I’m proud of our guys. They hung in there and battled and it’s a great learning experience for us.”