Leyden defeats Addison Trail in overtime

After Adam Braxton Jr. was called for a travel going up for the game winning layup in the final seconds of the game, Leyden's boys basketball team could have easily hung its head going into overtime against Addison Trail on Friday in Addison.

Instead the Eagles took advantage of some missed free throws by the Blazers, and with 23 seconds left in overtime, senior Jason Timmerhaus buried a game-winning 3-pointer to take a 1-point lead.

"The team, we're always upbeat," Timmerhaus said. "We're trying to look forward to the next play, make a turnover, next play and that's what we did going into overtime. In the shot I was the second option in the play and luckily I got the shot to fall."

With 14 seconds left the Blazers had a chance to inbound from their offensive end to try and take the lead in the final possession, but Addison Trail turned the ball over. That led to Domenic Aiello finishing off the Blazers with a layup in the final seconds for the 51-48 West Suburban Gold win.

"I honestly don't know if I could have taken another loss like that, that would have been like three in a row," said Leyden coach Bill Heisler. "So it was so nice to see them overcome a little adversity down the stretch there and Jason hit a huge shot … . It was a big win."

After outscoring the Blazers (14-6, 4-4) 11-9 in the first quarter, Leyden's DeAndre Williams got to work down low, hitting 8 of his 10 first half points in the second quarter and helping the Eagles (14-9, 2-5) go on a 7-2 run to go into halftime up 31-24.

"Its always hard work getting your position on the guy, releasing and catch," Williams said. "I feel pretty comfortable with it now."

After halftime Addison Trail and senior guard Taylor White - who came out of the gate hitting a 3-pointer to get the momentum going - outscored the Eagles 12-5 to tie the game at 36-36, but may have missed out on the opportunity to take a bit of a lead.

"I think we had ourselves 6 turnovers in the second half and two or three of them stick out as times when we had the scored tied or we were up two, trying to build the lead," said Blazers coach Brendan Lyons. "I don't think we got more than four ahead of them the entire game."

Tied at 44-44, the overtime drama sent Leyden out with a big road win. Williams finished with 14 points while the Blazers' White had a game-high 16 points.