Boys basketball: Reid scores 22, leads Batavia back to .500 with win over St. Charles East
Joe Reid knows that once he gets hot, it’s hard for anyone to stop him.
But at the start of Friday’s matchup against St. Charles East, the Batavia senior was struggling to find his shot after an opening 3-pointer, going 0 for 4 and even missing back-to-back free throws midway through the second quarter – a rare occurrence for him.
It didn’t take him much longer to find a spark after that.
“Once I missed those free throws, I just told myself it was going to be alright,” Reid said. “But then after I hit my other shots, it got me back into that rhythm and that helped me out.”
Reid would go on to go on to finish the second frame with 17 of his team-high 22 points, pushing the Bulldogs to a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish to take a 56-46 victory over the Saints.
“Joe had some really big shots for us,” Bulldogs coach Jim Nazos said. “This is just a sign that we’re going in the right direction. And this shows that we’re a team that’s hopefully trending up.”
Reid’s scoring spree provided more than enough comfort for the Bulldogs (7-7 overall, 3-3 DuKane) heading into the locker room. After a low-scoring first quarter where they led by five, the Bulldogs finished the half with a 36-21 lead.
“This full year we’ve been striving on defense and all of that,” Reid said. “But when my shots started flying and going in, I just took that confidence and kept the team going.”
Senior Evan Blankenship added 15 points in the winning effort, while junior Dane Farrar put up seven assists and eight rebounds.
But Nazos said he was most proud of the play off the bench, especially from seniors Ben Silbernagel (five rebounds, three steals) and Olan Johnson (five rebounds, five assists).
“They both did some really nice things for us off of the bench that won’t always show up on some of the box scores,” Nazos said. “They got their hand on the ball, passed the ball and passed up some shots to get some more open looks.”
The win also put Batavia at the .500 mark for the first time since Jan. 7 of last season, when they were 7-7 following a loss to Wheaton-Warrenville South.
“We really wanted to use the Christmas tournament to get our confidence back and be the team we know we can be, and we’ve been doing that recently,” Reid said. “We’re following our goal, and we’re going to end up where we want to be.”
The Saints (1-16, 0-6) couldn’t fully recover from Reid’s hot streak in the second quarter, pushing their losing streak to 15 straight.
But even with the streak, Saints coach Rob Klemm was more than happy with the effort his team put out.
“It’s just kind of the story of our season where we play good basketball and just have a minute or 90-second breakdown,” Klemm said. “That just stretches the game out a bit and stretches the game out. The guys are fighting and playing hard, we’ve just got to do that the whole 32 minutes.”
St. Charles East ended up outscoring Batavia in the second half 25-20 in the contest. Senior Peyton Feidley led the Saints in scoring with 14 points, including nine in the second half. Senior Reese Dumpit added 10 and Gavin Belli had nine more.
“Peyton played great, his shot’s working well for him,” Klemm said. “Defensively we also played Reid really well in the second half. There’s going to be a lot of positives when we watch the film. We’re right there as a team.”