West Aurora holds on to beat WW South
It was the tale of two wide-open looks in the final 16 seconds of an intense DuPage Valley Conference battle between West Aurora and Wheaton Warrenville South.
Blackhawks junior Jontrell Walker sunk a jumper with 15.7 seconds left in the game to give West Aurora the 53-51 lead, but it didn’t come without a final chance for Wheaton Warrenville South. The Tigers’ Matt Kienzle lofted an uncontested 3-pointer with 2.4 seconds remaining only to watch it clang out, handing West Aurora the victory after a valiant comeback from the Tigers.
“I’m proud of these guys,” Tigers coach Bob Szorc said. “I’ll take that shot any day of the week with that kid. The key thing is we didn’t quit and we kept battling.”
The Blackhawks, on the other hand, were happy to escape with the victory.
“They were right there,” West Aurora coach Gordon Kerkman said. “They were playing harder than us and we kept making mistakes. You don’t let a team like that hang around and they’ll get some momentum. They almost won that ballgame.”
Before the dramatic finish, West Aurora started out with a dominant first half. Forward Juwan Starks was an outside force, drilling three 3-pointers and notching 17 points in the first half alone. Starks was helped by forward Chandler Thomas and Walker to jump out to the early 36-26 lead at the end of the first half. The first quarter saw a battle of 3-pointers between Tigers guard Danny Roadman and Starks. Both players traded consecutive 3s twice to keep the first quarter close, but by the end of the half, it was all Blackhawks.
After a sluggish third quarter for both teams, the conference foes provided a heart pounding fourth. The Tigers (1-4, 1-1) used a 10-2 run in the final 4:30 minutes to erase an 8-point, fourth-quarter deficit. Kienzle, Roadman, and junior guard Michael Kramer drained buckets down the stretch to pull the Tigers closer.
Kienzle evened the score at 49 when he sunk two free throws with just 1:48 left. West Aurora answered with a jumper from Starks. But after a defensive stop, and a timeout, Tigers forward Tim Zyburt picked off a bounce pass and raced in for the layup, tying the game at 51.
The Tigers nearly came away with a defensive stop, but after a tipped pass, a wide-open Walker buried the eventual winner. Despite the heartbreaker Szorc couldn’t complain about the Tigers’ efforts in the second half.
“It was a phenomenal half by our kids,” Szorc said. “We’re only going to get better from here as a team, that’s the good thing. That’s what we have to take away from it.”