Neuqua Valley advances past Lincoln-Way East

An old basketball adage claims that sometimes the best offense is the missed shot. For Neuqua Valley on Monday night, it was the perfect solution as Will Stankus soared to tip in Blaise Meredith's missed shot at the buzzer to give the 14th-seeded Wildcats a 58-56 victory over No. 20 Lincoln-Way East in the opening game of the Class 4A Neuqua Valley regional.

"I saw the ball was going the other way and just followed the ball," said Stankus, a 6-foot-3 junior forward. "I just went up and tipped it in."

"Will's been playing good for five to six weeks now," said Neuqua coach Todd Sutton. "He's coming round, figuring it out, and we needed his five points tonight."

Conversely, it seemed that the made shot would carry the visiting Griffins (7-17) to an easy victory. Lincoln-Way East hit its first 8 shots of the game, including 3-pointers from Sam Shafer and Justin Siorek, and crafted 9-0 and 8-0 first-quarter runs, the second of which was capped by Zach Parduhn's 3-pointer at the buzzer for a 28-11 lead after eight minutes.

Though the Griffins did slow down in the second quarter with only 7 points, the Wildcats (11-18) could respond with only 8 of their own and still faced both a sizable deficit, 35-19, and a stern talking to from Sutton at halftime.

"I told them we had to execute on offense, focus on defense, get stops and just pick up the intensity; we were real soft in the first half," Sutton said.

Suitably inspired, Jacob Cushing led Neuqua's second-half charge with 9 of his team-high 18 points in the third quarter, which saw the Wildcats force 6 turnovers and outscore the Griffins 22-4 in the period. Ryan Phillips' 22-foot 3-pointer at the horn gave them a 41-39 lead, their first since it was 3-2.

"You're always wary when things come so easy, you don't know if you can sustain it for a long time," said Lincoln-Way East coach Rich Kolimas. "Neuqua Valley's a well-coached team and they came back. We had some turnovers in the third quarter and they started chipping away and when we got to the fourth quarter it was a close game."

Siorek's 3-pointer moved Lincoln-Way East ahead 44-41 and set off a stretch in which the team's traded baskets with Shafer and Perduhn hitting clutch shots for the Griffins and Cushing and Meredith answering for the Wildcats before Stankus claimed the hero's mantel.

Now, the Wildcats advance to face No. 3 Joliet West at 6 p.m. Tuesday. "They are the most talented team in the sectional, so we need to take care of the ball to win," Sutton said.