Boys basketball: Palatine downs Prospect, keeps MSL West title hopes alive

Three winters ago Brad Rathe brought his Prospect boys basketball squad into Palatine where it denied the Mid-Suburban League champion Pirates their first regional title since 2015.

On Thursday evening, he sought to extinguish their hopes of staying alive in the MSL West race after Palatine had dropped an overtime loss to archrival Fremd on a buzzer-beating bucket the previous Friday.

Despite their best efforts, Palatine would have too much for the visiting Knights. The Pirates used a 10-5 run over the final 4:46 in the third to pull away en route to a 47-26 win to keep those hopes alive as it moved their mark to 22-4 overall and 7-2 in the West.

Fremd (21-2, 8-1) kept its one-game lead in the division by holding off Rolling Meadows 41-38 on Thursday, setting off an interesting final week of West play next Friday.

The Vikings can win the division outright with a win at Hersey.

However, a home win by the Huskies in combination with a home win by the Pirates over Barrington would set up a first-place tie between Palatine and Fremd.

"To bounce back against a tough-nosed Prospect team who doesn't make it easy against anybody I feel good about the way we played after the way we responded after the Fremd loss," Palatine coach Eric Millstone said after his team's second straight win after also beating Wauconda on Saturday.

"I thought we rebounded well. I thought our defensive intensity was successful due to guys doing their jobs on the floor tonight."

That success held Prospect (11-14, 1-8) to 8 of 37 from the floor (21%) as it began to pull away after a three-pointer from senior guard Colin Tucker (team-high 7 points) closed the gap to 21-15 with 4:54 left in the third.

Illinois football recruit Tony Balanganayi tallied 4 of his 9 points during the decisive surge plus fellow senior Brady May added 4 of his 6 points to put the hosts up 31-20 after three.

Then after both teams traded scores to start the fourth, the Pirates put the game away with a 14-0 run.

This featured a pair of threes by senior guard Robbie Wilcox and 5 more points from Balanganayi.

Senior swingman Abram Williams led all scorers with 11 points, followed by senior reserve forward Will Santiago who joined Wilcox with 8 while May led all rebounders with 8.

Williams said regardless of what happens in the West there still is a feeling his team controls their destiny in the postseason.

"We feel like we can get ourselves on a run in the playoffs. That state run (fourth place) two years ago really opened our eyes to what's possible."