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Neuqua Valley wins in second overtime

Saturday's 66-63 double-overtime senior night win by the Neuqua Valley boys basketball team over visiting Plainfield East provides more evidence why Wildcats coach Todd Sutton put the Bengals on the schedule.

"We've been playing for several years. Plainfield East is a very good team. It's a nice rivalry. Our schools are close. It's a good nonconference game before the (state) tournament and it's always late in the season," Sutton said.

While the Bengals (14-11) controlled the first half, neither team in the second half could put much space between themselves and the other team, and it was that way until the very end.

With 1:32 left in the second OT, a free throw by Neuqua's Connor Raridon put the Wildcats up 60-55. Then Plainfield East's Elyjah Goss responded with two straight baskets to pull the Benegals to within one. Then during the last 22 seconds, Neuqua was 6 of 6 from the free-throw line, which went a long way in keeping the lead.

Raridon led Neuqua (23-4) with 18 points and those points put him third on the Wildcats' all-time scorers list.

"It's a nice honor. It's good to keep things going for the team. We played good tonight," he said. "Coach got on us a little bit at halftime and said we needed to pick up the intensity on defense and take better shots."

Plainfield East led 10-9 after the first quarter but shot 6 of 7 from the field in the second while the Wildcats cooled to 2 of 10 and the result was the Bengals leading 24-14 at halftime.

Neuqua's Demond George scored the first bucket of the third quarter, and the Wildcats went on to score 5 of the first 6 baskets that tied the game at 27. George finished with 16 points.

"We had to keep our heads up. We knew it would be an uphill battle," he said of the second half.

The Bengals led 37-34 at the end of the third on a basket by Goss, who finished with 14 points and 15 rebounds.

Plainfield East led 50-46 with 1:03 left in regulation time on a pair of free throws by Leonski Higgins. George followed with a 3-pointer with 50 seconds remaining before Wynston Wright added a free throw to make it 51-49. Then with 11.6 seconds left, Neuqua's Zachary Lendino was fouled and sank both free-throw attempts to make it 51-51 and send the game into overtime.

"I don't think we made adjustments at halftime. They just needed to do what they're supposed to do like transition defense. That was a big one," Sutton said.

Illinois-bound Aaron Jordan led Plainfield East with 20 points, 16 coming in the second half. He definitely presented a defensive challenge for the Wildcats.

"We gave him a bunch of different looks, zone at times, man at times," Raridon said.

Neuqua, which clinched the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division with a win over Waubonsie on Friday, closes out the regular season next Friday at East Aurora. The Wildcats are the top seed of the Class 4A Bolingbrook sectional and could see the sixth-seeded Bengals again in sectional play.

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