Prospect holds off Wheeling

Prospect is a boys basketball team that likes a challenge and Friday night it faced one.

Itself, and its own reaction to a spirited Wheeling team that dictated the pace, outrebound the Knights and had them on their heels after three quarters when Wildcat guard Jeremy Kim bombed home a 3-pointer at for a 39-38 home-team lead.

"They were well prepared and knew what we were going to do. They took us out of a lot of it," said John Camardella, Prospect's head coach.

Fortunately his seniors, whom he credited, regrouped and hit 7-of-10 field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter and 10-of-14 free throws while turning up the defense to register a 64-56 victory and remain unbeaten in the Mid-Suburban East (6-0).

For the last two-plus seasons, or 24 in a row.

In the decisive fourth quarter, which looked like it would start out with Wheeling (6-13, 1-5) having the momentum, the Knights (9-10 overall) grabbed it instead on Jack Schneider converting a loose ball into a lay-in, Jon Kreidler (12 points) converting a tough drive and leading scorer Ben Zellmer hitting a 3-pointer after Kreidler and company kept a rebound alive and tapped it out to him. That made it 48-43 and Wheeling wouldn't get closer than 2 points again. Schneider and Matthew Woloch both contributed valuable minutes off the bench.

"That was big," said Zellmer, who paced the Knights with 26 points. Up until then, "We weren't hitting a lot of shots."

Part of that was on the Knights themselves and part was Wheeling's energetic effort. Head coach Michael O'Keeffe credited his kids, who have played hard and had won 3 in a row coming into this one after losing 10 in a row at midseason.

"These kids bought into our message. We preached, 'it's a new season.' This was a lot better than the last time we played them," a 29-point blowout loss at Prospect.

The Wildcats were able to stay even and trade leads with the division-leading Knights for three quarters. Most of it came on the strength of Michael Best's outside bombing (team-high 19 points), including four first-half 3-pointers, and tough play around the basket from junior Cade Zalewski (12 points) and starting center Brandon Zettek.

In the end though, the Cats had no answer for Zellmer, who had 8 fourth-quarter points, and in the signature of a Camardella-coached team, shared the ball with everyone. All the starters scored, the points distributed evenly behind Zellmer.

"The kid's a great player," O'Keeffe said of Zellmer

Camardella returned the compliment, calling Best, "one of the best athletes in the conference" and crediting Wheeling for its preparation. But his team rallied when it had to, as he called the win "a credit to our seniors," including and especially Zellmer, who "had his best game."