Boys basketball: Warren rallies from 10 down, beats Waukegan to maintain NSC lead

Avonn King scored 18 points off the bench as Warren erased a 10-point first quarter deficit and remained perfect in North Suburban Conference play with a 72-59 home victory over rival Waukegan on Tuesday in Gurnee.

Jaxson Davis and Braylon Walker both added 17 points as the Blue Devils (18-2, 8-0) bounced back following their loss to Benet last Saturday.

“I think the response was obviously really good,” said Warren coach Zack Ryan. “Coming off a tough loss, Waukegan is a really good team and we had to be ready. And I thought our guys responded well.”

They faced adversity again in this one, as Waukegan (16-6, 6-2) pulled out to a double digit advantage early.

Bulldogs forward Jaali Love scored 9 of his 13 points in the opening quarter, including a three-point-play on a lay-in to make it 16-6 Waukegan with 2:19 to play in the frame.

With the packed visiting bleachers in a frenzy, Davis stepped up to quickly reel the quarter back in Warren.

He connected on a three-pointer and then stole the Waukegan inbound pass before performing acrobatics to lay it in at the rim and cut the lead to five in the blink of an eye.

“I knew I had to impact the game in some way,” said Davis, a 4-star junior recruit with several Big Ten offers. “We were struggling to score the ball early. So I feel like I just needed to hit a couple of shots to get our team going.”

“Then guys started to step up later in the half and throughout the whole game,” he added.

One of those who stepped up was King, who is being eased back into the rotation after an injury.

“We're just kind of working him back slowly,” said Ryan. “He's getting his legs under him. So I think he'll be probably ready to go by the time we play Friday, full time. He was great tonight off the bench.”

He made things difficult for Waukegan down low and gave the Bulldogs fits in the paint.

“Just helping any way I could,” said King, who scored 10 points in the fourth quarter. “Rebounding was a big part of it…I just need to impact the game by, like, rebounding, scoring it, playing defense. Everybody else can do the rest of it.”

Another key Blue Devil contributor was Walker, who helped spark the Warren turnaround with 9 first half points, including 7 in the second quarter.

“I thought Braylon played probably one of the better floor games he's played in high school, just with passing the ball and handling the ball,” said Ryan. “He's always been able to do that, but tonight, I thought especially he did a great job of relieving pressure, handling pressure when they started to trap.

“And then taking advantage of his scoring ability when he had to,” added the Warren coach.

Walker and his teammates are excited to have some breathing room in a competitive North Suburban race.

“It’s really good to be two games ahead of everybody in the conference right now,” said Walker.

As for the Bulldogs, they will have to hope for another postseason rematch with this Blue Devil squad if they want to get revenge after dropping both conference tilts this season.

“We watched a ton of film on these guys,” said Waukegan coach Ron Ashlaw. “Their tendencies defensively, and when we executed some stuff, I think we got what we wanted.

“What we have to do is stay with our stuff and have a little stick-to-it on this. We tend to stray a little too often and a little too early. That doesn't always work out well for us.

Carter Newsome led the way for the Bulldogs with 26 points and three long three-pointers.

Warren will put its perfect conference record on the line once again on Friday, when it heads to Zion-Benton. Meanwhile, Waukegan will hope to get back in the win column at home against Stevenson.