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Glenbard South's season ends in sectional final

Glenbard South reached the end of its line Friday at the Class 3A Woodstock North sectional championship, falling to Rockford Boylan 52-32.

From the start the No. 1-seeded Titans hit No. 3 Glenbard South with a full-court press and won the rebound battle 33-19, including 18 offensive boards to secure Boylan's 19th sectional title. The Titans will play Peoria Manual in Tuesday's Class 3A Northern Illinois University supersectional.

"Those two brothers (the Raiders' Billy and Charlie Bair), we knew they were pretty solid players, they were tough inside. We just wanted to get defensive stops and get out and run and play our game," said Boylan 6-foot-5 junior Zach Couper, who matched Glenbard South senior Billy Bair with a game-high 14 points.

Glenbard South (20-10) trailed all along, within 6 points once in the second half on Billy Bair's drop step to narrow the deficit to 26-20 on the first play of the third quarter.

Boylan (31-2) got immediate results from its diamond-and-1 press. Trapping on the sidelines, it forced 5 turnovers to earn a 14-6 lead after one quarter. Anthony Foreman scored 6 of his 8 points in the quarter, one of 6 Titans to score at least 5 points.

"It made it more difficult to bring the ball up and get in our offense," said Raiders point guard Jonathan Walker. "We haven't faced a press that good in a while."

Glenbard South's second quarter was its best, giving Boylan a dose of its own medicine by forcing 6 turnovers. A Tim Marks basket, a score by Charlie Bair from a Marks press-break assist and two Kyle Carli free throws closed the half on an 8-4 Raiders run and 26-18 deficit. Charlie Bair finished with 9 points and 8 rebounds.

"They were stopping the drive better," Boylan coach Mike Winters said, "and we just talked about the first one that gets in the paint may have to kick it out and we may have to redrive it a second or third time just because they were doing a nice job defensively."

The first five minutes of the third quarter the Bairs and Povilas Riauba mainly traded baskets with Couper and Co., but Glenbard South went scoreless over the last three minutes and entered the fourth quarter down 39-28.

"I thought if we could keep it in the 50s we had a pretty good shot at it," Raiders coach Wade Hardtke said. "Even going into the fourth quarter I thought we had a pretty good shot at it."

Two quick turnovers, including a Couper steal and dunk, lost any momentum. Glenbard South mustered 1 field goal in the final quarter, and when Couper canned a 3 for a 48-31 Boylan lead with about three minutes left, "that kind of did us in," Hardtke said.

As the Raiders had done to others.

"I knew we had a strong bunch of seniors coming into the season. Actually one of our goals was 20 wins and one of our goals was a regional championship. Those were two big boxes that we got to check off over the last week or so," Hardtke said.

"Winning that regional on that buzzer beater, that was awesome," said Billy Bair, who will begin training for football at Illinois State. "I love every guy on our team. We've all been able to get to know each other very well and everyone's just good friends and it's just really fun playing with everybody."

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