By Bobby Narang
The Jim & Sylvia Roberts Night of Hoops provided a late-season glimpse into the upcoming high school boys basketball playoffs.
The annual event, with Batavia High School host, featured four high-profile games Saturday, Jan. 21. In the opener, York High School relied on a late run to post a 63-57 victory over St. Charles East. A.J. Devine led the York Dukes with 19 points. By knocking off the Saints, 9-12, the Dukes gained some momentum to make a push up the standings in the West Suburban Silver Conference. York, 11-12, 2-6, is staring up at Glenbard West, (11-8, 3-3), Oak Park-River Forest (8-10, 2-2), Downers Grove North 18-3, 5-2, Lyons, 18-3, 5-2, and Conference leader, Hinsdale Central 19-3, 6-1.
In the second game, Wheaton Warrenville South crushed Larkin, 77-43, behind a game-high 27 points from Braylen Meredith. The senior showcased his wide-ranging talents, to earn praise from his head coach, Mike Healy.
“Braylen has stepped up,” Healy said. “He’s been our offensive leader the last month and is playing with confidence. But the good thing about him is, he’s doing it on both ends. He’s doing things on the defensive end, too.”
Wheaton Warrenville South enters the final week of January as one of the top teams in Class 4A. The Tigers, 20-2, 8-0, are on top the leaderboard in the DuKane Conference, but Geneva 18-3, 6-1, is right behind them.
“We’re excited for what’s coming up, with some big games coming up,” Healy said. “I’m real proud of how we’ve made strides and gotten better. We’re blessed we get a lot of multiple sport athletes who like to compete and we work our tails off. They are extremely unselfish and buy-in into everyone. Everyone also plays hard, so we’ve kind of had that goal for the last few years. Hopefully, that will carry on to next season. I don’t know how successful we will be, but I know our guys will play hard.”
Meanwhile, Hillcrest made a late surge to erase a double-digit first half deficit to pull out a 69-60 victory over Oswego East in the third game of the Batavia shootout. Senior point forward Mekhi Lowery finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds, and three blocked shots in the loss, and one key learning experience.
“I learned I have to be bigger and have to contribute for 32 minutes,” Lowery said. “I can’t have a good first half and a mediocre second half. That’s why we lost. We have to play hard all the way through, especially me.”
Hinsdale Central staved off a late rally by host Batavia to win the final game, 54-49 Saturday night. Central had a tough two-day stretch by beating Lyons in front of 3,000 fans at home Friday and defeated the Bulldogs on their home floor.
Ben Oosterbaan, who plans to play baseball at the University of Michigan next season, paced the Red Devils with 18 points.
“Batavia is playing at a very high level,” Hinsdale Central head coach Nick Latorre said. “They run their offense precisely and have tough kids that get after it. We had to grit this one out. I couldn’t be prouder of how we played in this game.”
Batavia was led by Jack Ambrose, who scored 11 points in the defeat. The Bulldogs, 11-12, weren’t able to build off Friday’s big win over Wheaton North, 68-52, but head coach Jim Nazos said his Batavia players showed heart by coming back in the final minutes.
“Hinsdale Central is a great team,” Nazos said. “We wanted to play a really good team in this game. We’ve gotten a lot better in the last month. This is a great game to show where we’re at…We learned a lot of things from this game.”