Roberts' game-winner lifts Hersey past Meadows

A near-capacity crowd got more than their money's worth Friday night at Hersey.

Hersey's boys basketball team built a big third-quarter advantage against visiting Rolling Meadows, but watched the Mustangs rally to take a 1-point lead with 19 seconds left in the game.

Then, Hersey junior Ethan Roberts went coast-to-coast in the final seconds to score the game-winning basket for a 72-70 Huskies win in a Mid-Suburban East thriller.

"Those were two tough teams battling it out," Huskies coach Austin Scott noted. "Rolling Meadows is a well-coached team, is very disciplined and has a lot of talent, and we showed tonight that can play with teams like that. That's huge for us going forward."

Hersey senior Daniel Clawson added: "We played really well as a team. We came together, we fought and we got to every 50.50 ball, which was our strategy coming in."

Clawson had 8 clutch points in the second half of the contest that saw Rolling Meadows' Max Christie pour in 41 points. Roberts led Hersey with 26.

"Hersey made some big shots," said Meadows coach Kevin Katovich. "You have to give them a lot of credit."

The Huskies led 32-25 at intermission, then increased the lead to 47-33 late in the third quarter after Roberts hit a layup, then followed that up with a 3-pointer moments later.

But Meadows slowly chipped away, and when Christie was fouled and sank 2 free throws with 19.8 seconds remaining, the Mustangs led 70-69.

After a timeout, the ball came into Roberts, who rushed it down the court and hit a contested layup - and was fouled - to put Hersey back ahead at 71-70 with 9 ticks remaining.

"We had a drive screen coming up top," said Roberts of the play, "Max (Christie) found me and they were bringing two guys, so I hesitated, drove in and got the bucket, and the 'and one'."

"We trust him to make those plays," added Scott of Roberts. "He stepped up. I'm so proud of him, and I'm happy for him to have that moment."

Roberts missed the ensuing free throw, but after a huge offensive rebound from junior Griffin Ginder, Brent Wolff made 1 of 2 foul shots to put Hersey up by 2 with 5 seconds remaining in regulation.

Christie took the ensuing inbounds pass and dribbled to the frontcourt.

"I'm not going to lie," said Clawson. "It was pretty scary to see an All-American (Christie) come up the court down by 2, but I had all my trust in Ginder to get the stop, and he did it."

Christie's attempt for a long game-winning 3 at the buzzer was off the mark, sparking a wild celebration for the Huskies and their fans in the center of the court.

Sophomore Orlando Thomas scored 15 points for Rolling Meadows, while Ginder finished with 19 for Hersey and teammate Scott Rogowski added 10.

"In every good game, there are changes in momentum," Roberts explained. "We tried to play a half-court game tonight to slow them down. We had a lot of turnovers, but we stuck to it and got the job done."

"Our record may not be the greatest, added Roberts, "but we work really hard in practice just for games like this."