Fenton falls to Willowbrook

Sometimes a spark is sitting right there next to you.

That's how it was with Willowbrook's boys basketball team on Tuesday, as the Warriors used a fine effort from their bench to help knock off Fenton 70-63 in a nonconference game in Villa Park.

Led by Phillip Reid's 9 points and key play from Kevin Pohl, Mike Carlini, Pearle Olatunji and Matt Redmer, Willowbrook's reserves came through when called upon in both halves.

"Our bench is working us in practice all the time," said Warriors senior forward Milton Colbert, who led all scorers with 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. "I think they definitely deserved to be in the game to get more playing time. Our bench really came out and played aggressive."

Fenton (9-10) stayed with the Warriors (13-4) early, lunging to a 5-point first-quarter lead behind Billy Gratzl's 7 points. He had 12 for the game.

Carlini, Olatunji and Reid, however, all scored to push Willowbrook back ahead at 23-19 early in the second quarter. After seven lead changes and six ties, the Warriors finally snared the lead for good at 32-31 on a pair of Jamell Hunter free throws with 1:39 left in the half.

"Those kids really did a nice job," Willowbrook coach Tim Lavorato said of his bench players. "A game that was a tossup at the start, I really think they helped get us a cushion. And that was huge in the game."

Three straight buckets by Colbert, including his second dunk of the game, helped the Warriors extend the lead early in the third quarter. The spread moved to double digits heading to the fourth, which is where it stayed until the Bison made a late run.

Fenton pulled within 7 points and had the ball with about a minute left but came no closer.

"I thought we hung in there, but that's kind of the way we do things," said Fenton coach Dennis Cromer. "We don't fold and we don't fall apart. Lately we've been scoring. But game in, game out we can't afford to be giving up 70 points. It puts too much pressure on our offense."

Damian Sieradzki led Fenton with 17 points while Gozie Umeadi added 15 and Darek Potuszynski tallied 11 points. Joe Flood scored 17 points for Willowbrook and Hunter had 10 points.

"A win's always positive," Lavorato said. "But we know we need to play better to beat Downers South on Thursday."