Glenbard East closes in on DuPage Valley sweep
Glenbard East’s boys basketball team is one win away from a DuPage Valley Conference sweep for a second straight season.
The Rams will want their finale to be less exciting then Saturday’s 63-59 victory over West Aurora in Lombard.
Clawing from a 39-22 halftime deficit, West Aurora pulled within 61-59 before the Rams tucked away their 27th straight DVC win.
“Hopefully it was a learning experience that we’ve got to be able to play a full game,” said Glenbard East coach Scott Miller.
“We just got too comfortable with the lead and didn’t value the possessions at both ends of the floor.”
West Aurora coach Gordie Kerkman said, “I think we played scared the first half which resulted in poor execution, it resulted in poor defense.
“The second half we kicked it up a little bit and started playing with a little bit more determination and started to make things happen a little more.”
Having clinched its second straight outright DVC title on Friday, Glenbard East (21-3, 13-0) ran a first-half clinic. It led 20-10 after a quarter and held the Blackhawks to 10-of-31 first-half shooting.
“Coach told us that this is the perfect night for an upset,” Rams forward Johnny Hill said. “A great team like West Aurora, they’re going to come out and play hard regardless of what their record is. I think that was our motivation — we’re not going to have any letdowns.”
Hill and Dante Bailey, on their way to respective 20- and 15-point nights, rolled inside and out. Kevin Priebe came off the bench for 2 first-half 3’s and 8 of his 11 points. The shortest player out there, Tyree York, grabbed 7 first-half rebounds. Passes were crisp, defense tight.
At halftime West Aurora (14-10, 9-4) heard all about it.
“(We were) more aggressive, played with a lot more heart and guts out there, because coach really got on us in the locker room about not playing with our heart,” said West Aurora forward Juwan Starks, who overcame a leg cramp to score 14 points, second to teammate Brandon Hayes’ team-high 16.
A strong third quarter by 12-point scorer Jonathan Dennison cut the deficit to 48-36 entering the fourth quarter.
West Aurora forced 4 turnovers off its press during a 13-2 run before Hill drove twice for a 59-52 Rams lead with 3:28 left.
The Blackhawks cut the margin to 61-59 on Kenny Battle Jr.’s steal and baseline drive with 57 seconds left. Glenbard East missed 2 free throws after an intentional foul, but Zach Miller and Hill each made a foul shot in the last 14.3 seconds to stay on top.
“We want to go 14-0,” said Glenbard East point guard Zach Miller, who scored 11 points. “We all want that.”