Downers South gets first win of season at Willowbrook's expense
After enduring the first three weeks of the season without a victory, you'd think Downers Grove South's boys basketball team would have been in full celebration mode following Tuesday's win over Willowbrook.
The young Mustangs, though, treated it like just another step in the process.
Rallying from a late fourth-quarter deficit, Downers South finally notched that elusive first win with a 57-54 West Suburban Gold decision over Willowbrook in Villa Park.
"You've got to just keep your head up, I kept telling (teammates)," said Mustangs senior Mantas Augustinavicius, the team's only player who returned varsity experience. "We'll get there. Just go through the process and we finally got a win. It feels good."
Sophomore Alonzo Verge Jr., nursing an ankle injury, scored to give Willowbrook (4-4, 1-3) a 52-47 lead with 3:32 left in the game. The Mustangs (1-7, 1-2) - playing much of the fourth quarter without sophomore Denis Alibegovic, who scored a team-high 19 points before leaving the game with a hand injury - stormed back behind their defense.
Buckets by Augustinavicius and sophomore T.J. Clifford and a pair of free throws by Khmari Green put Downers South ahead to stay at 53-52, but that's not to say Willowbrook didn't nearly pull out the victory. Chris Roycroft, who scored 12 points, hit 2 free throws to narrow the Warriors' deficit to 55-54 with 51 seconds left before turnovers and missed shots thwarted the comeback attempt.
"There's a lot of parity in our conference and games are going to come down to the wire for the most part," said Willowbrook coach Chris Perkins. "It comes down to making those timely plays at the end of a game which, unfortunately, we were not on the positive end of those plays today."
Clifford's pair of free throws extended the advantage to 57-54 with 4.1 seconds left, and the Mustangs forced a missed 3-point attempt from Willowbrook in the final seconds to seal the win.
Alibegovic scored 11 points and knocked down three 3-pointers in the first quarter as the Mustangs stormed to an 18-8 lead. The Warriors finally got going in the second quarter behind Verge, who scored 10 of his game-high 21 points in the second quarter.
Willowbrook led by as many as 6 points before Downers South rallied.
"We're a young team," said Downers South coach Kris Olson. "They work so hard, they needed that."
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