Elgin Academy pulls out last-second win at Westminster
Elgin Academy boys basketball player Ryan Ulrichs brought his A game to Westminster Christian Saturday night. He scored 13 of the Hilltoppers' 23 first-half points but they still trailed the Warriors by three at the intermission.
Knowing that Ulrichs couldn't carry the load through the entire game, at halftime Elgin Academy coach Rick Williams urged the rest of his team to step up.
His players responded and Elgin Academy squeaked past Westminster, 56-55.
"We decided to be aggressive. We had number 11 (Ulrichs) playing well for us in the first half as far as being aggressive, but the other four guys or anybody we were putting in weren't," said Williams. "So we stressed at halftime that other people had to contribute offensively and defensively - winning jump balls and loose balls."
Switching from a man-to-man defense to a 1-2-2 trapping zone also helped.
"They did a good job against our man-to-man. Thirty-two on their team (6-3 freshman Justin McGinnis) was a hand full," said Williams. "He ate us alive. We had to respect him so we switched up our defense to trap him a little bit."
McGinnis score a team-high 23 points and pulled down 8 rebounds.
Westminster coach Damion Abrams was very succinct in summing up what swung the momentum in Elgin Academy's favor.
"Turnovers, 5 for 13 from the free-throw line and lack of toughness. We were able to get the ball inside and capitalize on our size," Abrams said. "For some reason we got rattled at the end which shows a lack of toughness and we are working on that. They went to a soft 1-2-2, which we were prepared for but that's when we gave the ball away a few times. That hurt us."
Westminster scored the first basket of the fourth quarter to go up 45-35. Elgin Academy then went on a 17-6 run finishing with an Ulrichs layup to take a 52-51 lead with less than three minutes to play. Ulrichs led all scorers with 29 points.
The Warriors responded with a Frankie Schlaffer bucket to retake the lead, 53-52. Ulrichs and Westminster freshman Justin Glanzer traded baskets to put the Warriors up, 55-54.
With 1:07 left to play, a Noah Townsend bucket returned the lead to the Hilltoppers, 56-55. The Warriors had chance to go ahead but were unable to convert two free throws.
After Townsend snared the loose ball, Elgin Academy went into a stall to run the clock down. At the 17.2 second mark, Ulrichs couldn't get his shot to drop and Westminster recovered the ball. With 1.2 seconds left, the Warriors took their last shot but it missed the mark.
Elgin Academy led 14-11 at the end of the first quarter. The Warriors scored the last three points of the first half to retake the lead, 26-23.
Thanks to Glanzer, Westminster (1-4) maintained its lead in the third quarter. He scored 12 of his 16 points in the period - all on 3-pointers.
Christian Rodriguez scored 11 points for Elgin Academy.
The nonconference win raised Elgin Academy's record to 5-2.
"We had four wins all of last season so we feel real good about our progress," Williams said.