Neuqua Valley 69, Bartlett 53
Neuqua Valley didn't just build a boys basketball program over the last 10 years.
The Wildcats built a family.
And like a great big holiday gathering, they celebrated this one together.
With a 69-53 victory over Upstate Eight Conference rival Bartlett in Friday's Class 4A East Aurora sectional final, Neuqua Valley won its first sectional championship.
The Wildcats (25-7) advance to Tuesday's Chicago State University supersectional to play Richards (27-4), a 70-57 winner over Lyons Twp., for a berth in Friday's state semifinals in Peoria.
"It's a great feeling to be the first team to do this," said Wildcats junior Derek Raridon, who hit two 3-pointers and scored 14 points. "The last two years it was definitely heartbreaking to not be able to make it into supersectionals. We weren't going to give it up this year."
Ninth-seeded Bartlett (22-8) scored the game's first basket, but Neuqua Valley went on a 14-0 run and never trailed again. The Hawks pulled within 29-28 at the half to set up a possible barn-burner in the second half, but the sixth-seeded Wildcats had other plans.
Opening the third quarter with a 14-5 run, Neuqua Valley didn't let Bartlett come closer than 8 points away the rest of the night. Four players hit double-figure scoring for the Wildcats as they seemingly hit the Hawks from every angle, inside and out.
"They're just like us, they've got lots of weapons," said Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith, whose team finished with the most wins in program history. "You've got to have a whole team effort defending them for 32 full minutes."
After Raridon and Dwayne Evans, who had a game-high 17 points and 10 rebounds, controlled the first half for the Wildcats, several players pitched in for the second half.
That included on defense where Neuqua Valley limited 6-foot-9 Kamil Janton, who had 12 first-half points, to only 3 second-half points.
Six-eight Dan Pawelski finished with 11 points and 8 rebounds for Neuqua Valley while Brad Keeler, who knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, added 10 points.
"In the second half we ran the same stuff, we just slowed down a lot," Pawelski said. "We went hard, but we slowed down and executed. Then we got easy buckets."
Holding the potent Bartlett offense scoreless for the first three minutes of the fourth quarter, Neuqua Valley established its largest lead of 59-40. Luke Labedzki and Marc Little each scored 11 points for Bartlett.
"We weren't ready to play tonight," Little said. "It's disappointing, but it happens."
With history already in the bag, Neuqua Valley turns its attention to Richards. The Wildcats' next goal is to take their extended family down to Peoria.
"I think about them all the time because they keep e-mailing, they keep calling, they keep showing up," Wildcats coach Todd Sutton said of his former players. "They want our kids to know that the former 'Cats are pulling for them.
"This isn't just a 2008 thing, this is a program thing," he said. "We have a lot of former players here, and they are proud. They are a part of this."