Reall's long shot lifts Crystal Lake South past Grant

Buzzer-beaters are becoming a thing for the Crystal Lake South boys basketball team.

On Saturday, the Gators won their Hinkle Holiday Classic game at Jacobs against Streamwood when Kyle Leva drained a 17-foot jumper in a tie game as time expired.

Lightning struck twice for the Gators as they returned to Jacobs after a two-day holiday break. And this time, the last-second fireworks were even more dramatic.

In a tie game against Grant on Tuesday with 2.4 seconds left and the full length of the floor to go, Matthew Reall caught the inbounds pass along the far side of the floor and launched an off-balanced 50-footer as he sailed out of bounds along the sideline. And the shot, in the air forever, hit nothing but net as the buzzer wailed and the gym erupted.

The dramatic 3-point buzzer-beater gave Crystal Lake South a 41-38 win over Grant and propeled the Gators into the championship bracket of the tournament for the second time in six years.

Crystal Lake South improves to 7-5 on the season. Grant drops to 3-7.

"I think I had a game-winner a long time ago. But this is a lot bigger than that," said Reall, a starter who had struggled from the field against Grant and made his only basket of the game an extremely important one. "That was crazy and awesome and when I saw it go in, I was like, 'I can't believe that.' It's a crazy feeling. I wasn't really expecting that."

Neither was Grant.

The Bulldogs were riding high just moments earlier, having tied the game on what looked like it would be the last basket of regulation. Down 38-36 and having gone more than five minutes without a basket, Grant scored a layup with 18.4 seconds left when Matt McGraw found Michael John Smith with a spot-on cross-court pass that led Smith right to the basket.

A couple of turnovers on both sides ran the clock down to 2.4 seconds and set up Reall's heroics.

"It's hard. We were just trying to play good defense at the end and (Reall) jumped out of bounds and I had my hands in his face. I don't know what happened," Smith said. "We had a lot of energy (from the tying basket). But we shouldn't have been in that position to begin with."

Grant, which was playing its third game without leading scorer Michael Huff (school decision), kept sabotaging itself with turnovers, which has been a problem all season, and particularly in this tournament, where the Bulldogs are averaging more than 20 turnovers over three games.

Against Crystal Lake South, Grant racked up 27 turnovers.

"It wasn't the (buzzer-beating) shot," Grant coach Wayne Bosworth said. "We shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. Our turnovers ... we can't recover from that. We don't take care of the ball. We don't value possessions enough right now to be able to win ballgames.

"To have 27 turnovers in a 41-38 game, it wasn't even an up-and-down game in the 90s or anything. I'll have to go back and look at (the film), but it's possible they scored all of their points off of our turnovers. Mathematically, that shouldn't even been an option. It's crazy."

Henry Kusiak led Grant with 8 points while Chase Maifield and Tavarus Williams had 6 points each. McGraw added 5 points and 9 rebounds.

For Crystal Lake South, Tyler Haskin scored a team-high 15 points while Leva had 7 points and Benjamin Jenkins had 6 points off the bench.

"It's a lot of fun to win the last two games at the buzzer," Crystal Lake South coach Matt LePage said. "It's one of those moments these guys are never going to forget. They are riding the momentum of that and the emotion.

"And if our defense keeps playing the way it is, you're going to have a chance to win."