Leyden routs West Chicago in second half
With his right hand wrapped gingerly in ice, Leyden boys basketball player Anthony Gonzalez insisted he’d be ready to play on Wednesday.
Now that the season is on the line, he doesn’t want to miss a minute.
Leyden opened the playoffs strong in the Class 4A York regional quarterfinals with a 53-28 victory over West Chicago in Elmhurst. The 10th-seeded Eagles (17-10) advance to Wednesday’s semifinals to face No. 7 Bartlett (19-9).
West Chicago (5-23) used a 7-2 run to pull within 18-12 at the half, but Leyden took full advantage of the 10-minute break. The Eagles stormed to a 14-0 run to start the third quarter to build a comfortable 32-12 lead on Nick Best’s tip-in.
“We started good, but then during the second quarter we kind of slowed down, and that’s something we shouldn’t have done,” Gonzalez said. “We should have had them the whole game. But we got the ‘W.’ We’re just looking for the win.”
Leyden’s zone defense caused fits for West Chicago, which made 8 of 33 shots from the field and committed 17 turnovers. Wildcats leading scorer John Konchar did a nice job getting to the line while tallying a team-high 8 points.
Between Mitch Henke’s basket late in the second quarter and Konchar’s three-point play midway through the third, the Wildcats were held without a field goal for nearly seven minutes.
Gonzalez scored a game-high 15 points for Leyden while Jonny Woolf added 13 points.
“Down 6 points, not a bad spot to be in all considered,” West Chicago coach Bill Recchia said of the halftime margin. “I sound like a broken record but it’s been our Achilles’ heel of not putting together a full 32 minutes.”
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