Neuqua Valley wins fourth straight game
Neuqua Valley guard John Poulakidas drew his third foul early in the third quarter of a close basketball game at Waubonsie Valley. Wildcats coach Todd Sutton kept him in the game.
Sutton had plans for the 6-foot-5 sophomore.
"We were going to run a play for him. He probably wasn't going to foul shooting the ball," Sutton said.
Poulakidas came around a screen to swish a 3 from the top of the key. It was part of a 22-point third quarter for Neuqua and part of a 43-point second half that turned a tight contest into a 62-40 DuPage Valley Conference win over the Warriors in Aurora.
Losing its first three games, Neuqua Valley (4-3, 1-0) has righted the ship and in the process dealt a first loss to Waubonsie Valley (5-1, 1-1).
"We started off 0-3 and our biggest flaw was defense," said Poulakidas, whose 19 points tied Waubonsie Valley's Marcus Skeete for game honors. "But these past few weeks in practice Coach Sutton has been pushing us really hard and we've really picked it up."
Neuqua committed 7 turnovers in the game's first 11 minutes, yet despite Skeete's 13 first-half points the Wildcats rallied to a 19-18 lead entering halftime. They took off from there.
"I've got to give credit to Neuqua, because they came out and they were really disciplined, they executed their stuff, they played way better defense than they have on film. They did a nice job today," said Waubonsie coach Jason Mead.
Out of halftime Neuqua went on an 11-5 run, and when Sutton did send Poulakidas to the bench, his teammates gave no slack. Consistent throughout four quarters, Connor Davis scored 12 points and Mark Gronowski came off the bench to add 11 points and 4 offensive rebounds, all in the second half.
Before Sutton emptied his bench - Justin Clemens' last-minute bank shot drew a huge cheer from the Wildcats' student section - eight players in the nine-man rotation scored at least a point. The ninth, Patrick Hoffman, drew Sutton's praise for his defense.
Waubonsie's 6-5 Caymen Woods scored the last of his 10 points in the third quarter to help the Warriors remain within 41-30 entering the fourth. Poulakidas, Gronowski and Max Rivera keyed a 9-5 Neuqua run to start the last quarter, the 50-35 advantage proving insurmountable.
Gronowski believes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
"We've all been playing for awhile together and we all just connect very well together and it makes us play a lot better than we physically can," said the 6-3 junior. "It lets us be able to score a lot more when we can connect and make passes like we did today."