Wilson comes up big in Waubonsie’s win over Metea
The way things have been going this year, no one on the Waubonsie Valley side was surprised to see the long 3-pointer by Moses Wilson drop down and prove to deliver the game-winning points.
There was still about a minute to play in a tight game at Metea Valley Friday night, but it was not all that surprising either that the unbeaten Warriors then came away with a steal that led to a free throw and a 48-45 victory over their rival Mustangs.
Metea Valley had taken a 45-44 lead on a jumper from the corner by Jake Nosek with 1:21 left to play in front of a packed gym in Aurora. But Wilson connected on his game-winning 3 and followed up the shot with a steal that sealed the Warriors’ 21st win in 21 outings while improving to 7-0 in the DuPage Valley Conference.
“I just caught it and released it. I knew it was going in,” said Wilson, a 6-foot-4 junior who finished with 10 points. “We all play for these moments. It just came to me and I executed.”
Warriors coach Andrew Schweitzer, whose team has been making a habit of winning close games, felt good as soon as Wilson let the ball fly.
“When that shot went up, I just go, ‘It’s in’. That’s how we felt,” he said. “There’s something to be said for a belief system. We’ve a had a lot of quality wins against really, really good programs. We’ll take it.”
The Warriors expected a tough battle on Friday and a Mustangs team that has been playing solid basketball of late was ready to prove them right. Metea Valley (16-8, 3-4) led 17-13 after one quarter after Nosek and Alex Danehl each hit 3s and Will Ashford scored 10 points to kick off his big evening.
The back-and-forth affair saw the Warriors lead by three points after the second and third quarters, and again when the game ended. Tyreek Coleman had another big game for Waubonsie Valley with a game-high 21 points, but it was the team’s stout zone defense and ball-hawking play that created key turnovers and made the difference.
“Two really good basketball teams,” Mustangs coach Isaiah Davis said. “We’ve been playing really well and obviously they’ve been playing really well all year. We didn’t make a couple key plays down the stretch and we came up a little short. We had some ill-advised turnovers. We gave them four points where we just turned the ball over under our basket.”
Even with those untimely giveaways, the Mustangs battled to the final horn. Ashford had four dunks on his way to 17 points, Tre Watkins added 9 points, and Nosek and Danehl each tallied 8 points.
But in the end, the Warriors found a way to continue to stay perfect on the season.
“It was scary but fun,” said Coleman, who had 4 steals and 5 rebounds to go with his big scoring night for the visitors. “At the end it’s our defense. No matter how we get it done, just get a victory.
“Beating your conference rivals is a huge win. The second time around is harder. They hit us with a shot in the first quarter but we bounced back. The defense stepped up and Mo hit a huge 3 down the stretch. We’ve been tested and we know what it’s like to fight through adversity.”