By Drake Skleba
For the Bugle
With 3 minutes, 55 seonds remaining in the 2018 edition of the Valley View School District rivalry, between Romeoville and Bolingbrook, the Spartans’ Zach Gibson’s put-back basket gave the Spartans a 52-50 lead.
After trailing by as much as 10 points, in the second half, the undefeated Spartans had taken their first lead of the night. The huge contingent of Spartan fans from Romeoville were rocking.
Not so fast.
Led by senior, Joseph Yesufu (21 points, four rebounds, two steals) and junior, Darius Burford (25 points, four rebounds, two steals), the Raiders (6-2) scored 20 points in the last four minutes of the game – 16 from the charity stripe and roll to the 74-66 win.
After Gibson’s bucket gave the Spartans the lead, a pair of costly Spartan turnovers led to three Raider free-throws, one by Burford and a pair by senior Anthony Thompson (five points) for a 53-52 Raider lead they would not relinquish.
Yesufu’s old-fashioned three-point play with 2:45 left gave the Raiders a 56-52 lead.
Thompson calmly converted another pair of free-throws, extending the Raider lead to 58-52 with 2:17 left.
After Romeoville’s 6-foot-8 senior Noah Ferrell (11 points, seven rebounds) converted a pair of free throws, Bolingbrook’s 6-foot-9 Cam Leonard’s (nine points, nine rebounds) monster slam gave the Raiders a 60-54 lead with 1:43 to go.
A Burford bucket with 1:11 left gave the Raiders a 63-56 lead. The Raiders would knock down seven of their eight charity tosses in the last minute to seal the 74-66.
“We really didn’t play well tonight,” Yesufu said. “We still came away with the victory and it was a good win. I scored 21 points tonight but I feel I didn’t play as well as I should have down the stretch. Darius (Burford) is a great player and played well for us tonight.”
“In the first half I felt confident in my shot and could not miss, “ Burford said. “In the fourth quarter we finished strong to get this victory. In our previous games we had not done well at the free throw line. It was great to see all of our hard work on free-throws pay off with the 16 of 18 made free throws to win this game.”
For Romeoville (6-1), the Spartans suffered their first loss, of the 2018-19 campaign. The Spartans were led by junior Destin Whitaker, who scored 15 points before fouling out with 1:30 to go in the game.
Spartan junior Zach Gibson stuffed the stat sheet, just missing a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds. Gibson had six steals in the first half alone to keep the Spartans close at 32-36 at halftime.
“In the first half, I played hard on defense to keep us close at halftime, “Gibson said. “In the second half, I went inside to score my points. It felt great to put us up with four minutes to go, but we made some key mistakes afterward that hurt us.”
“We battled all night but we made too many mistakes down the stretch that cost us this game,” Whitaker said. “ We did a lot of good things as a team but we still lost the game.”
For Romeoville, the Spartans return home Friday night with a Southwest Prairie Conference match up with Plainfield South at 6:30.
“We battled back and then finally took the lead with four minutes to go,” Romeoville coach Marc Howard said. “We killed ourselves with a couple of crucial mistakes that cost us the game. We have to work on our closing out an opponent. Zach is getting better and better each game for us. He plays outside and he can play inside and is very versatile. Noah is one of our vocal leaders. When Noah talks people listen.”
The Raiders are off for two weeks before heading to Ocala, Florida for the Kingdom of the Sun Holiday Tournament on December 29. The Raiders will welcome the return of senior do-everything forward Tyler Cochran, who has been out for four weeks, with a broken finger.
“In our two losses, to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Madison, Wisconsin, we were within three points or less against the No. 2 teams, in Iowa and Wisconsin without Tyler,” Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost said. “We defeated one of Illinois’ best in Springfield Southeast without Tyler. And tonight Romeoville came in her undefeated and now has their first loss.”