Metea Valley's ninth straight win ousts Addison Trail
There's an appealing madness to Metea Valley's method.
When the Mustangs boys basketball team finds its fourth gear of Bryson Oliver steals and coast-to-coast layups, Dei'Ron DeLaRosa 20-foot bounce passes to Ron Edwards cutting backdoor, DeLaRosa and Matt Helwig hitting 3s in transition, it's hard to keep up.
Addison Trail got everything it could have wanted out of the post matchup between 6-foot-5 junior Eric Grygo and Metea's 6-6, 230-pound Mark Konkle, but pell-mell Metea won its ninth straight game 68-44 Wednesday in a Class 4A Proviso West regional semifinal.
"I think we've got the fastest four guards in our conference, so when Bryson gets the ball or Dei'Ron gets the ball we're looking up the court and passing to the man that's wide open," said Edwards, who matched DeLaRosa with 15 points.
Reaching a regional final for the first time since its sole regional title in 2012, on Friday No. 8 seed Metea Valley (17-12) faces the East Aurora sectional's No. 1 seed Lyons Twp., a 55-48 winner over Proviso West.
"We've relied on our defense for a month and a half, almost two months now we've got it. And this time of year, those teams are going to advance," said Mustangs coach Bob Vozza.
Central to the effort was Oliver, with 4 steals, and fellow senior Nick Dodson, assigned to Addison Trail's all-West Suburban Gold senior Taylor White.
While Grygo scored 12 points with 8 rebounds in the paint, Dodson barely gave White breathing room.
"I noticed that his left hand was weaker so I tried to force him left, tried to chase him off screens," said Dodson, who matched his foe with 9 points. "Didn't really let him get open, I denied him a lot, so I just tried to limit his looks."
No. 9 seed Addison Trail (15-12) held within 14-11 of Metea in the first quarter. The Mustangs gained separation first slowly then quickly.
Leading 29-22 at halftime as Addison Trail struggled to maintain a half-court tempo, in the second half Metea outscored the Blazers 39-22.
"We stressed at halftime just trying to keep it close, finishing some of those close plays but still defensively keeping them within striking distance," said Blazers coach Brendan Lyons. "We had us for 20-plus turnovers, and you do that against these guys and they're going to run you off the floor."
The result decided with several minutes to play, Lyons had both Taylor White and his brother Tyler on the court together to close their senior season.
"I don't get to do it too much," Taylor White said. "I loved that my brother got a chance to get in. He's worked just as hard as anybody else and I always love playing with him."