Valley victory ends Glenbard East's four-game skid
Victory came at a great time for Glenbard East.
The Rams boys basketball team snapped a four-game losing streak Friday, on the road against Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division leader West Chicago 42-40.
Countering a 37-33 deficit with five minutes left to play, Glenbard East outscored the Wildcats 9-3 and didn't allow a point the last 1:16. The happy Rams bounded off the court as their cheerleaders yelled with playoff-style exuberance.
"This was big, I'm not going to sugar-coat it," said Rams coach Scott Miller, whose club moved to 9-6 and 3-1 in the Valley to draw even with West Chicago (13-4, 3-1).
"I just thought our kids for the most part played pretty well," Miller said. "We had some breakdowns, but that's what's going to happen when you go against a good team, too. Give West Chicago credit for that. But I thought the last eight minutes, fourth quarter, we executed, we made buckets, we got stops, and that was able to get us on top."
West Chicago played mainly a 2-3 zone defense, which troubled Glenbard East in its most recent loss, to Bartlett. The Wildcats at times also led somewhat of a charmed life.
They got two late Jourdan Habecker free throws to lead 11-9 after one quarter, Mikey Bibbs' buzzer-beater putback for a 23-19 halftime lead, and brother Tai Bibbs' banked-in 3 for a 34-28 lead after three quarters.
"There's always a positive about it, because we know it's a ballgame we could have won," said Wildcats coach Bill Recchia. "One of the things we talked about was we didn't shoot extremely well and we're still into a last-possession ballgame, so that says something about our defensive effort."
Glenbard East stuck with it, though, having gone to school this week against the zone.
"Coach talked about it all the time, all the time," said Rams senior Mike Finley, who scored 8 of his game-high 18 points in the last 4:32. "Me and (Zach) Walsh in the middle, and cut down to the basket."
Walsh found Finley for an alley-oop layup and 38-37 lead with 2:53 to play. Terrence Lakes added a baseline drive.
Tai Bibbs scored his third 3 and team-high 16th point to tie 40-40 with 1:16 to play. Finley hit 2 free throws for the 42-40 edge then played tough man defense to regain possession.
In the last 15 seconds West Chicago missed a 3 and Finley corralled the rebound, his sixth.
"We just have to be smarter down the stretch," Tai Bibbs said. "We'll learn from it, we'll be better by the time playoffs come. We'll bounce back from this on Tuesday."