Verge, Willowbrook slip past Benson, Hinsdale South
Even on an off night - by his standards - Alonzo Verge Jr. still found a way to cap off a perfect January for Willowbrook.
Verge's go-ahead 3-pointer with 38 seconds left put the Warriors ahead to stay in Saturday's 64-63 West Suburban Gold victory over Hinsdale South in Darien.
Willowbrook (16-6, 5-3) extended its winning streak to 10 in a row and stayed unbeaten in 2015 despite a monster game from 6-foot-11 Hornets junior Barret Benson, who went off for 29 points and 18 rebounds.
Hinsdale South (11-11, 4-4) took a brief 61-59 lead on Zach Duffy's layup but Verge, who scored 17 of his 19 points in the game's final 11 minutes, answered with his deep 3-pointer just seconds later. After the Hornets' sixth turnover of the quarter, Jake Bruns knocked down a pair of free throws to boost Willowbrook's lead to 64-61 with 18.9 seconds left.
Benson, who hit a 3-pointer earlier in the fourth quarter, missed his game-tying attempt in the waning seconds. Brian Kern, who scored 17 points, put back the miss to account for the final score.
Kevin Miller hit four 3-pointers to finish with 12 points for Willowbrook.
"I didn't know it was going to be one of those nights, but as long as I can help my team some other way, I'm good with it," Verge said of having 2 points until the final three minutes of the third quarter. "I'm not going to lie, I knew I was going to shoot (the game-winning 3-pointer) from the beginning. I just believed in my shot."
A Carlos Meyers 3-pointer gave Willowbrook its biggest lead of 48-33, but Hinsdale South and Benson hammered away at the deficit throughout the fourth quarter.
The Hornets capped an 18-3 run with a pair of Kern free throws that gave them a 59-57 lead with 2:04 left. Hinsdale South missed out on two chances to extend the advantage, leading to game-tying free throws by Verge, Duffy's layup and Verge's game-winning shot.
"It was just a good game," Benson said. "I liked how we showed some fight to come back from being down like that."
The Warriors' monthlong streak has them alone in second place in the Gold, and their 16 wins are the program's most since 2008.
"That's the difference between how we play now and the beginning of the year. We didn't have the experience in those end-of-the-game situations," said Warriors coach Chris Perkins. "Now our team feels comfortable. It's killing me because we could have put this team away, but we let teams back in the game and it comes down to (Verge) making a big shot at the end."
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