Kaneland gets its revenge
After dropping a home game to Sycamore just over three weeks ago, Kaneland realized the Spartans were better than their 9-19 record suggested.
The top-seeded Knights kept the pressure on throughout Tuesday night’s Rochelle Class 3A regional semifinal and secured a well-earned 55-45 win over their Northern Illinois Big 12 East rival.
Kaneland (16-10) advanced to Friday night’s championship game against No. 2 seed Rochelle (21-8), which collected a come-from-behind 59-57 victory over Hampshire.
Marcel Neil and Thomas Williams contributed 15 points each to pace the Knights while Trever Heinle added 13 points in a balanced attack.
“We knew coming in this wasn’t going to be some type of walk-through game,” said Kaneland coach Brian Johnson. “They are a team that has gotten better throughout the year.”
“Everybody came ready to play and they delivered too,” Williams said.
Fresh off of Monday’s win over Burlington Central, Sycamore got off to a strong start, with sophomore Devin Mottet (20 points) connecting on his first four shots inside for an 8-4 lead.
The Knights answered with an 11-point run as Dan Miller scored to end the first quarter and Neil opened the second by draining a 14-foot jumper and a 3-pointer for a 15-8 advantage.
Sycamore narrowed the gap to 22-19 at halftime as Thomas Paulson hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer and the Spartans followed with the first basket of the third quarter.
The Knights finally seized control of the game with a 9-point explosion over the next two minutes.
Trever Heinle scored on an 8-footer in the paint and added a transition layup, Williams made a steal and went coast-to-coast for a hoop, and Drew David connected on a 3-pointer off another Spartan turnover.
“We knew whoever came out with the most energy at the beginning of the third quarter was probably going to win the game,” David said.
“We realized when we got the ball we could get out and run,” Williams added. “They weren’t able to get back fast enough, so we made the quick outlet pass to get easy layups.”
The Spartans closed back to within 33-27 before Tyler Heinle hit a clutch 3-pointer to end the third quarter and Trever Heinle completed a 3-point play off a nice feed from David to open the fourth.
Kaneland held Sycamore at bay by connecting on 9 of 11 free throws in the opening seven minutes of the fourth quarter.
Neil added the exclamation point with a slam dunk and subsequent free throw after being fouled on the play with 43 seconds remaining.
“Kaneland took us out of a lot of the things we wanted to do,” said Sycamore coach Andrew Stacy. “We could never get into a rhythm and a lot of that is because of how well they played defensively.”
Friday night’s championship game should be a thriller as Kaneland captured a 60-56 decision on the Hubs home floor in late January and Rochelle returned the favor with a 59-57 win at Kaneland last Friday.
“We’re not a team that’s going to put up 70 points like Rochelle does, so we have to work really, really hard on the defensive end of the floor,” Johnson said.
“We’re expecting a close, intense game,” Williams said. “We only lost by two, but we were down 30-12. We can’t get off to a slow start like that again.”