Downers Grove South shows 'grit' in victory vs. Wheaton North
It's always tough when one of your top scorers gets nicked up early in an important game.
Sometimes other players step up, sometimes they don't.
Justin Eagins did for the Downers Grove South boys basketball team Friday night.
Eagins, a senior guard, scored a game-high 23 points, including six 3-pointers, to lead the Mustangs to a 56-53 win over Wheaton North in the championship bracket quarterfinals of York's 45th annual Jack Tosh Holiday Tournament.
All this after fellow senior Wes Hooker suffered a hip pointer in the first four minutes of the game. Hooker entered the contest averaging 14 points a game - and had scored 7 before he went out.
The victory was the seventh in the row for Downers South (8-4) and puts the Mustangs in the tournament final four, with a semifinal date with Lyons Twp. at 8 p.m. Saturday.
"(Hooker) is a big part of what we do, so as a team collectively, we have to pick him up, and accomplish it without him," said Eagins, who hit on 6 of 10 3-point attempts.
Eagins connected on an NBA-caliber 3 from the top-left of the key with 47.8 seconds left to pull the Mustangs with in 53-52. That was the start of a 7-0 run to end the game.
"It's just my teammates trusting me to make the right basketball play, and then always knowing that I put the work in so it's going to come back to me in return, for situations like that," Eagins said.
After a pair of free throws by Timmeon Gamble with 31.5 seconds left, Wheaton North turned the ball over on a pass out of bounds on Downers South's end. On the ensuing inbound the Mustangs broke the Falcons' press and led to a relatively easy layup by Christopher Gory that set the final score.
But that wasn't the end of the drama. Hardly.
Wheaton North senior guard Jacob Schauer attempted a 3-pointer from the right arc with 10.5 seconds left and just missed. Add a couple of tension-heightening timeouts by Falcons coach Dave Brackmann, and that made everyone hold their breath at junior Garrett Horner's 3 at the buzzer, which also just missed.
"One of our best players goes down at the four-minute mark, and he's the heart and soul of our team," said Downers South coach Kris Olson. "So to overcome that it really showed a lot of grit. We were very excited about the maturity of our team."
Senior guard Kamonte Brown-Poe came off the bench to score 6 and led the Mustangs with 4 rebounds. As a team, Downers South shot 47 percent from behind the arc.
Wheaton North got down 27-20 at the half, and used an 8-0 run to tie the game at 39 at the end of the third quarter. Back-to-back 3s by Schauer and Horner midway through the fourth put the Falcons up 49-44.
"We were playing very individually and we're not good enough with individual pieces," Brackmann said. "We have talent, but we need each other to be good. I thought we got wrapped up in it in the first quarter and dug ourselves a hole and then had to chip away the rest of the game."
Senior Deng Reng led the Falcons with 17 points and 6 rebounds, while Schauer had 13 points and 4 assists.