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Block's shot drops Lake Park in final seconds

After what was just another typical DuPage Valley Conference basketball game Tuesday night, Wheaton North's Rowan McGowen walked off the court with his arm around a smiling Ethan Block.

McGowen, who scored a personal-high 34 points in Friday's win over Metea Valley, was happy to hand off the role of hero to Block on this night. Block dropped in a short floater with 1.2 seconds left to break a tie and give the Falcons a 44-42 defeat of visiting Lake Park.

The game was tight throughout and was tied at the half, again after three quarters and then again at 42-42 after Lancers sophomore forward Diamante Smith's driving basket with less than a minute left to play.

On the Falcons' final possession Lake Park's defense did all it could to prevent McGowen or Luke Anthony from beating them, and that's when Block stepped up to deliver his first game-winner.

After several passes worked the clock down to the final seconds, Block worked a give-and-go with Jack Bennett and then let go a short shot that just beat the buzzer. Initially the clock showed 0.9 seconds left, but the officials met and reset the clock to 1.2 seconds, which didn't matter much after Bennett stole the Lancers' last-second long inbounds pass.

"It was a real DVC battle," said Block, who finished the game with 6 points and 2 assists. "Teams have been going at it every single day and tonight was no different."

Block admitted to having a few nerves on his winning shot but was not at all surprised to see Lake Park focus much of its attention on McGowen and Anthony.

"The whole time they were pushing out on Luke and Rowen. They're our two best offensive players and we were able to play off that," Block said. "I was able to get down the middle and pass it off to Jack and he gave it right back. I got an open shot. It was a little floater at the end. I was a little nervous and I thought No. 55 (Mitchell Jarosinski) might come over and try and block it."

But the ball dropped through the net safely and the Falcons improved to 14-8 overall, 7-5 in the DVC.

"It was really fun," Wheaton North coach Dave Brackmann said. "Everyone made mistakes tonight, but everyone also contributed. In this conference any win you can get is big, especially against Lake Park, which has had a ton of success. It's a big win for us. Coming off a big win last Friday to get another one will help keep the momentum going."

Injury-riddled Lake Park (14-8), still without senior guard Kenny Bogus, dropped its third conference game of the year on the heels of a setback to Naperville North on Friday.

"The bottom line is you've got to execute and we didn't execute and they did," Lancers coach Josh Virostko said.

"That's why they won. It had nothing to do with who did play and who didn't play. It's just about if you execute better than the other team you're probably going to win and they did that so I give them a lot of credit for that."

Anthony led the Falcons with 11 points, but was blanked in the second half, while McGowen was held to 7 points by a strong Lancer defense. Bailey Vance led Lake Park with 15 points and Daniel Hynes added 8 points, all of which came in the second quarter, which ended with the score tied 24-24.

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