Eastern, Evanston battle past Waukegan
It's been said that rebounding is all heart.
On Friday night, the Evanston boy's basketball team showed that its heart is beating strong.
The Wildkits, the No. 2 team in the state of Illinois, endured a tough test from host Waukegan in the Waukegan sectional championship game. In fact, Waukegan had a 9-point lead in the third quarter. But a relentless hustle for offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter that resulted in a handful of second-chance points put Evanston over the top in an 81-68 win over the Bulldogs in a jam-packed gym.
"I think our guys felt it was now or never," Evanston coach Mike Ellis said. "Waukegan played a great game and usually you face a time in the playoffs where your back is kind of up against the wall. But it was just the will of our guys. We have some size down low and we got a lot of putback scores."
Purdue-bound 6-foot-6 forward Nojel Eastern (215 pounds) scored a team-high 29 points and had a couple big offensive rebounds and a putback in the fourth quarter. Of his 17 total rebounds, seven were on the offensive end. Fellow big body, 6-foot-6 forward Elyjah Williams (230 pounds) pumped in 18 points, including three big fourth-quarter putbacks. He had 11 total rebounds, five of which were on the offensive end.
"We were just trying to get easy buckets," Eastern said of the relentless offensive rebounding. "We just wanted to win, so we were going after everything."
Evanston, the top seed in the Waukegan sectional, will now face Whitney Young, the No. 2 seed in the Proviso East sectional in Tuesday's Chicago State supersectional (7 p.m.). The Wildkits improve to 28-3 on the season, with their only loss to a team in Illinois coming to Naperville North. Waukegan, meanwhile, closes out its season with a 21-9 record.
The Wildkits broke open their 3-point advantage (57-54) early in the fourth quarter by going on a 13-3 run. Not only was the offensive rebounding a key, but Evanston also clamped down on defense, not allowing a Waukegan field goal for the first five minutes of the quarter.
"We were in foul trouble a little bit and our lineup got disrupted with guys in and out," Waukegan coach Ron Ashlaw said. "That flow that we usually play with (on offense) disappeared."
Senior guard Carson Newsome, who poured in a game-high 33 points, was keeping the Bulldogs in the game with free throws (he hit 15-of-19 on the game), but he fouled out at the 3:26 mark and Waukegan continued to struggle to score.
"It's hard to go out like this," Newsome said. "It's not so much the loss, it kind of just came to me that this is my last time playing with our guys. That's real emotional. It just feels like we just started to get it all together and everything was all good. And now it's over."
Evanston got double-figure scoring from one other player besides Eastern and Williams. Chris Hamil had 12 points, including three 3-pointers.
Newsome was Waukegan's only double-figure scorer but the Bulldogs got 9 points apiece out of DeShawn Davidson, Ja'Dyn Brown and Bryant Brown.
"We had a really good season to come from 13 wins last year and 6 wins the year before to 21 this year," Davidson said. "It was a big turnaround for us. I'm proud of my team."