Glenbard North executes late to edge Metea Valley
Just what the doctor ordered.
After Glenbard North dropped a game to Batavia on Wednesday, the Panthers needed a pick me up in a bad way.
At Saturday’s Martin Luther King Basketball Tournament at Wheaton Warrenville South, Glenbard North (14-5) got a double dose of rebound wins, capped by a thrilling 54-52 defeat of Metea Valley in the afternoon. Earlier in the day, the team kicked off its tourney play with a 59-45 win over Lake Forest Academy.
“The first game wasn’t really a challenge for us, but this second game was a challenge, especially coming off the loss [to Batavia],” said 6-foot-5 senior JJ Hernandez, who led all scorers with 26 points in the tight win over the Mustangs. “I think this game was a good way for us to bounce back from that.”
Metea Valley (11-7), which had knocked off Morton earlier in the day, took a 7-4 lead early against the Panthers following a 3-pointer by Will Ashford. Glenbard North, however, closed out the opening quarter with a 15-6 run as Jack Schager hit a pair of 3s and Hernandez made four straight free throws.
The Mustangs, however, kept the game close throughout as James Parker used his dribble-drive talents to score a game-high nine field goals and Ashford scored in a variety of fashions on his way to a team-high 19 points.
It was 29-27 Glenbard North at the half, their lead was three after three quarters, and they were able to hang on for the 2-point victory in large part due to a strong effort at the foul line late. Josh Abushanab hit on all four of his free throws in the fourth quarter while Hernandez made 6 of 8 to finish 10-for-12 from the foul line on the night.
“I was happy with how we handled things down the stretch,” Glenbard North coach Kevin Tonn said. “It’s a lesson we’ve learned the hard way over the course of the season, so it was a good one to pull out.”
The Mustangs went with a full-court press in the second half and over the final two quarters the Panthers had seven turnovers while Metea had just two. But the Mustangs ended up a shot or two away from victory.
“They started applying pressure and they jumped into that full court press,” Tonn explained. “I thought JJ did a real nice job down the stretch, especially with all the free throws. We did have a couple bad turnovers toward the end but I thought we did a nice job recovering on the defensive end, making things tough on them and rebounding real well.”
Jalen Crues had 13 points and 10 rebounds for Glenbard North, while Abushanab added 7 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists.
“It was a good high school basketball game. Two good teams. They made one more bucket than we did,” Metea Valley coach Isaiah Davis said. “We just didn’t hit a couple key shots. We had opportunities.”
Parker agreed with his coach that his team played well, but needed to knock down another shot or two when the chances were there.
“We played pretty good basketball,” Parker said. “It wasn’t a terrible game where we didn’t play defense, and didn’t rebound. It was just little things, like missing open shots, taking contested shots when we didn’t need to force it…things like that. We just needed timely buckets and timely defensive stops.”
Both teams will resume play at the tourney on Monday.