Down 13, Kaneland rallies to beat Batavia in OT
For three-and-a-half quarters the story of Kaneland and Batavia’s season opener at the 38th annual Ken Peddy Classic was the sizzling shooting of Bulldogs sophomore Canaan Coffey in his varsity debut.
Luckily for the Knights there were four minutes left for them to show they have some shooters, too.
Senior Drew David drained three 3-pointers in the final 4:38, including one from the top of the key with 17 seconds to go to tie the game at 70 and force overtime. David opened the extra session with another jumper, then Tyler Carlson sank the Knights’ 10th 3-pointer of the game and they went on to an 81-74 come-from-behind win.
It was an outcome few saw coming as the Bulldogs extended their 10-point lead after three quarters to 13 with time running out.
“I don’t know if there were a ton of adjustments made,” Knights coach Brian Johnson said. “Drew made some big shots down the stretch. That’s what you expect from a 4-year senior.”
Kaneland sophomore Dylan Vaca — who played a year of AAU basketball with Coffey — scored 19 points, David and John Pruett 18 each and Tyler Carlson 14.
“Give Kaneland all the credit,” Batavia coach Jim Nazos said. “They hung in there and did all the things they had to do to get it to overtime. They did things exactly right the last three-and-a-half minutes.”
Batavia (0-1) led Kaneland 63-50 midway through the fourth after Coffey swished his seventh 3-pointer of the game. The Knights outscored the Bulldogs 31-11 the rest of the way.
David answered with back-to-back 3s to start the Knights’ comeback. Vaca’s 3 brought Kaneland within 64-61 with 2:30 left, and after Chasen Peez made a pair of free throws, Carlson’s 3-point play cut Batavia’s lead to 66-64.
Peez made two more free throws, but with 35 seconds to go the Bulldogs fouled Vaca shooting a 3, and he made all three free throws. Tyler Lovestrand’s 2 free throws put the Bulldogs ahead 70-67, and the Knights called timeout. The ball ended up in David’s hands, and he buried the tying 3. Lovestrand couldn’t get his runner to drop in the final seconds sending the game to OT.
“We were trying to get a back screen and a fade screen for someone else,” David said. “There wasn’t much time left so I didn’t have much choice to shoot it. It felt good.”
Kaneland dominated the overtime, scoring the first eight points. Junior Connor Fedderly sank 5 of 6 free throws to seal their comeback win.
“It was a big deficit and we just had to find a way to come back,” said Vaca, who scored 14 of his 19 points in the second half. “My shots weren’t falling in the fist half but I kept shooting and they stated falling.”
Tied at 13 after one quarter, Coffey scored 15 points in the second quarter to push Batavia ahead 35-28 at halftime. He made five 3s in the first half including a 4-point play. Even with defenders like David flying at him Coffey couldn’t miss.
“I don’t know what I could do to him, he wasn’t going to miss,” David said. “He was unbelievable.”
After Coffey’s big first half Peez came alive in the second with 14 points as Batavia led 55-45 after three quarters. Coffey led all scorers with 26 points making 7 of his 12 3s, and Peez scored 21 points with 6 rebounds.
“He did a lot of good things offensively,” Nazos said of Coffey. “He’s going to have a really good career. We were further ahead of where I thought we’d be offensively but we’re very far behind where I thought we’d be defensively. We did a lot of things wrong as a team defensively. We were out of position, we didn’t rebound, we didn’t get through screens the correct way. A lot of little things.”
Kaneland outrebounded Batavia 34-27 and committed only 10 turnovers. The Bulldogs were playing without starters Micah Coffey and Tucker Knox, both getting ready for the Class 6A state championship football game Saturday.
“The boys fought,” Johnson said. “They just kept going at it.”