MM_011917

44 | January 19, 2017 | The Mokena Messenger sports
mokenamessenger.com
Boys basketball
Sandburg free throw sinks Griffins in fourth quarter
Jon DePaolis
Freelance Reporter
For elite athletes, all that
matters — all that can enter
their mind at a given
moment — is the next play
or the next shot. For Sandburg’s
6-foot-8, junior center
Barlow Alleruzzo, that
meant putting behind a
fourth quarter against South-
West Suburban Conference
foe Lincoln-Way East Tuesday,
Jan. 10, during which he
missed all three of his previous
free throw attempts.
In that moment — with
exactly 17 seconds left in the
game and the Eagles down
40-39 — Alleruzzo stepped
to the charity stripe and focused
on his next shots.
“After I got done missing
like three free throws, I kind
of just took a deep breath and
realized I [needed] to have a
good amount of confidence
and just do what I used to do
in my backyard as a kid —
knock them down,” he said.
Alleruzzo sunk both shots,
and the Eagles held on to
earn a hard-fought, comefrom-behind
42-40 win in
Orland Park to improve to
9-5 overall and 1-1 in conference
play.
He was one of two Eagles
players in double figures,
scoring 11 total points and
grabbing three rebounds.
Sandburg senior forward Edmond
Mila led the team (and
the game) with 16 points and
six rebounds. Eagles junior
forward Jack McNulty added
eight points, four rebounds
and two assists, while junior
guard Jake Pygon had three
points and four rebounds.
Lincoln-Way East (10-
5, 0-2) was led in scoring
by 6-foot-6 senior forward
Dorian Aluyi, who had nine
points and six rebounds.
Teammate Zach Parduhn, a
junior guard, had nine points
and one rebound, while
6-foot-6 junior guard Sam
Shafer added seven points,
three rebounds and two
assists.
Alleruzzo said his team’s
conditioning played a big
part in their success against
East — particularly down
the stretch.
“We can be a gritty team,
and we also can get down the
floor hard,” he said. “We’re
not the biggest team, so we
have to be able to play hard,
play good defense, rebound
and do the little things every
time to win the game.
“We have a major amount
of confidence in ourselves.
Everybody trusts and loves
each other, so we trust that
when we are on the court,
we believe we can come
back from anything. We’re
a gritty team. We believe we
can do anything.”
But early on, it looked like
East would ride a hot start to
victory. The Griffins never
trailed in the first half after
scoring the first basket of the
game. Max Shafer, a 6-foot-
4 senior forward for the
Griffins, grabbed an offensive
rebound and put in the
shot to make it 2-0 about 30
seconds into the contest. A
little more than a minute later,
Sandburg tied it on a twopoint
jumper by Alleruzzo,
and the teams traded baskets
to make it 4-4 with 5:01 left
in the opening quarter.
But then the Griffins
closed out the quarter on a
9-5 run to lead 13-9. During
that stretch, Aluyi hit backto-back
3-pointers.
East hit back-to-back
3-pointers to start the second,
as well, with Parduhn
and senior forward Dan Mulhollan
(5 points, 2 rebounds)
knocking down the shots to
give their team the 19-9 lead.
Sandburg’s Mila followed
with a 3-pointer from the
left side, but then Parduhn
streaked through the paint
and made a shot while taking
a foul. He sunk the free
throw to complete the threepoint
play. Then, Aluyi made
1-of-2 free throws on East’s
next possession to give the
Griffins a 23-12 lead with
4:09 left in the half. That
was as big a lead as the Griffins
would have the rest of
the way, as the Eagles began
to claw their way back.
With under four minutes
to play in the half, Mila sunk
back-to-back 3-pointers to
get his team within 5 points.
“We were just running our
offense,” Mila said of his
scoring spurt in the second
quarter. “The team saw I
was hot, and they did a good
job of getting the open guy a
shot. I just did my part and
knocked the shot down.”
Then, after East got backto-back
buckets, Sandburg’s
McNulty drove the paint
and scored. Sandburg junior
guard Jason Pygon then hit
a free throw, followed by a
two-point jumper to make it
27-24 East with 1:32 left in
the half.
After a few failed possessions
and some fouls by
the Eagles, East got the ball
inbounds with 2.5 seconds
left in the half, and junior
guard Sam Coverick nailed
a 3-pointer at the buzzer to
give his team a 30-24 halftime
lead.
But foul trouble would
soon spell doom for the
Griffins.
“Our two best players got
into foul trouble — Dorian
Aluyi had two, and Sam
Shafer had two,” East coach
Rich Kolimas said. “We had
to take them out of the game,
and [Sandburg] was able to
creep back into the ballgame
at that point.”
Kolimas also pointed to
the defensive intensity of the
game perhaps taking a toll
on his players.
“I don’t know if it was
the fast pace but [rather] the
intensity of the defense,” he
said. “That was so high today
that both teams were fatigued
[late].
“Another thing is that we
haven’t played a game in 12
days. We’ve been trying to
simulate game situations in
practice, but it’s hard. I think
both teams were affected by
the intensity of the defense,
and it affected our shooting.”
Sandburg came out firing
in the third quarter, with Alleruzzo
putting in a 3-pointer
from the left side to start
things off. After Sam Shafer
put in two free throws a
half-minute later, Sandburg
went on a 9-0 run — with a
3-pointer (5 points total during
the run) by McNulty and
baskets by Mila and Jake Pygon
— to take its first lead of
the game at 36-32 with 1:25
left in the third.
But East closed out the
quarter on 5-0 run — with
baskets by Parduhn and
6-foot-6 senior center Zach
Zivo (5 rebounds) — to retake
the lead at 37-36
After a sloppy first four
minutes of the final quarter,
Sandburg retook the lead on
a basket in the lane by Mila.
With 3:22 left in the game,
Jake Pygon hit 1-of-2 free
throws to push the lead to
39-37.
Mila said Sandburg’s team
chemistry helped late.
“We really like each other,
and we trust in each other
— and that’s a big key,” he
said. “We know that when
we pass the ball to the open
man, that guy will knock
down the shot.”
Less than 20 seconds later,
Sam Shafer hit one of his
free throws after a foul by
Jake Pygon to make it 39-38
Sandburg.
Then, after a foul by Jason
Pygon on Sam Shafer with
1:33 left, Shafer hit both of
his free throws to give East
its last lead of the game at
40-39 — setting up Alleruzzo’s
late heroics.
Alleruzzo said the win was
important for the Eagles, especially
after a loss at home
earlier in the season left a
bad taste in their mouths.
“It was huge, because
we haven’t played a home
game in about two weeks,”
he said. “It was big for us to
come back and win at home,
because we lost one of our
home games to Stagg, which
is a big conference game.”
Dance
From Page 46
effort was paramount.
“We danced 150 percent
on that floor, and the rest of
it was in the judges’ hands,”
she said. “We did the best
we could. We’re proud of
our performance. We’re
glad that the judges saw our
performance like we did.”
It marked the second consecutive
year that Andrew
won conference. They finished
with a 91.7. Lincoln-
Way West (88.03) and Lincoln-Way
Central (78.73)
were the other top finishers.
“It’s so exciting to be
conference champs,” Andrew
coach Julie Mattix
said. “We were trying to
uphold the title, and they
were able to do it. They’re
a super-awesome group of
hard-working girls. They’re
like a little family.”
Andrew lost nine team
members to graduation, so
while they had some returnees,
they also had some newcomers
that needed to step
up.
“They lived up to the challenge,”
Mattix said. “I’m
just really proud of them.”
Lincoln-Way West, which
placed 8th in the state in
Class 2A last year, took second
place at both levels.
“I am very pleased with
the performances of both
teams,” Warriors coach
Melissa Sweeney said.
“Each year, the goal of our
program is to produce an
athletic and entertaining
routine. Both teams exceeded
my expectations for
their performance, and I am
extremely proud of every
dancer and the West dance
coaching staff.”
The Warriors will now focus
on moving on to sectionals.
“We have been the sectional
champions for the
past two years and have had
great success at the state
level,” Sweeney said. “This
is what we’ve been working
toward all year.”
Lincoln-Way Central followed
right behind the Warriors
to take third place.
“We’re very happy,”
Knights JV coach Niki Orseno
said. “Our JV got first,
and the varsity got third,
which we’re very happy
with. We’re just anxious to
see the scores to see where
we fell in terms of place.”
As long as the Knights
continue to progress, Orseno
will be satisfied wherever the
team lands in the standings.
“You always wants to do
better than the last time, and
I think the girls understand
that,” she said. “We’re just
going to make sure our
score keeps going up, and
if that happens, we’ll see if
we move up in places, and
we’re hopeful for that.”