West Chicago remains undefeated

West Chicago might not have had one of its best shooting performances from the floor on Wednesday night.

But thanks to a strong defensive effort and their splendid work at the free throw line, the Wildcats cruised to a 62-37 win over Douglass as part of their own Thanksgiving tournament.

West Chicago improved to 3-0 at the event after allowing just 15 points through three quarters while making 20 of 22 attempts from the free-throw line.

"Our first couple of days, we were bad at free throws," said senior Mikey Bibbs, who scored 12 points to go along with 3 steals. "The first game, I'm pretty sure we were 15 of 31. So every morning we've been shooting 100 free throws each. And on defense, we were a good defensive team last year. That was our way of play and we are going to keep it going this year."

The home team led 8-5 after the opening eight minutes before going on an 18-4 run during the second quarter to seize control. Tai Bibbs scored all of his game-high 17 points, including a steal and a dunk, in the middle two quarters as the Wildcats led 45-15 after three. For the game West Chicago forced 19 turnovers.

"We've got experience everywhere and we are very deep," Mikey Bibbs said. "We can come out and pressure the ball for the whole game."

Jacob Wiegele hit a pair of 3-pointers in the final period and finished with 10 points. Alex Dolan hauled in 6 rebounds and Peter Dolan chipped in with 3 steals.

"It was a solid defensive effort by everybody," West Chicago coach Bill Recchia said. "We threw in a few new things tonight, and I'm happy with the way they adjusted to what we were doing. Offensively, we are just scratching the surface. We just have to fine-tune what we are doing. Every day out there, they are improving from the previous day."

West Chicago, which also has victories over Solorio and Holy Trinity, will close out the tournament with contests against Schurz and Elgin on Friday and Saturday. Elgin is also 3-0.

"With this being our tournament, we want to win it," Mikey Bibbs said, "but all of those games should be competitive games."