Parker's free throw sinks Benet
Metea Valley was perfect on all 16 of its free throws when Raysean Parker stood at the line with two chances, the score tied, 1.9 seconds to play.
Benet's student section yelled like crazy to throw him off, and Parker, a 66 percent free-throw shooter ... missed.
And he heard it — from his teammates: “Just believe in yourself, you got this, follow through,” they told him.
“That's what I did,” Parker said, “and it went in.”
The senior's free throw, after which he was swarmed by his teammates, gave No. 3 seed Metea Valley a 45-44 win over No. 6 seed Benet on Friday at the Class 4A Metea Valley regional final in Aurora.
“I was just hoping I would make it,” Parker said. “I was so scared. I'd never been in that situation before. I was praying.”
In those last 1.9 seconds Benet's Pat McInerney inbounded the ball across midcourt to 6-foot-8 Sean O'Mara. Two defenders hassled O'Mara, who passed to John Enochs on the right wing. The horn sounded before the ball left Enochs' hand and Metea Valley (24-4) advanced to Tuesday's East Aurora sectional semifinal against 23-5 Downers Grove South, a 64-51 winner over Hinsdale Central.
“These kids are ready for anything,” Metea Valley coach Bob Vozza said while his Mustangs cut down the net following the young school's landmark title. “They could have put their heads down at halftime (trailing 28-21). They did not. They came roaring back and made plays.”
The biggest came in the last nine seconds. After a timeout Benet (21-7) got the ball past the timeline, but Parker forced the dribbler to the sideline. Teammate Ryan Solomon sensed Benet was in trouble.
“I saw he had nowhere to go, so I just went toward the sideline to block his path and he tried to spin,” said Solomon, who scored 10 points with two big 3s. “Ray got his hand in there and stole it, and then he took it the other way and got fouled. Whatever works. We needed one point, that's what we got.”
Aside from a 13-0 Benet run spanning the first and second quarters to give the Redwings a 23-15 lead midway through the second, even a 5-point streak seemed huge in this defensive grinder.
Metea Valley missed all 10 of its second-quarter shots, routinely rejected by Bobby Wehrli and O'Mara, who scored a game-high 17 points with 5 rebounds and 5 blocks. Enochs scored 11.
“I think we play pretty good defense,” said Redwings coach Gene Heidkamp. “I think that's been pretty apparent. I credit our kids with that. They play exceptionally hard, they pay attention to detail and they compete.”
Returning the favor, Metea forced 11 second-half turnovers, including TréSean Mackey's 3 steals.
Led by Kenny Obendorf's 14 points, including 8-of-8 shooting from the foul line, the Mustangs rallied from a 37-33 deficit. With 1:36 remaining, Sean Davis fed Milan Bojanic inside to tie the score 44-44.
Benet will be back.
“This is an unbelievable group of kids,” Heidkamp said. “The character that my team's had all year, it's beyond words for me. They're really what a high school basketball team should be all about. They're great students, they're great people and they really know what it means to be a team.”