West stays alive with win over Flyers
On a night when both teams struggled at times, Belleville West found a way to win.
After watching a 12-point second-quarter lead disappear, West held on to beat East St. Louis 49-48 Wednesday in the semifinals of the Class 4A O’Fallon Regional.
The Maroons (15-11) advance to Friday’s 7:30 p.m. championship game against top-seeded O’Fallon (26-2).
“The first half I thought our kids did exactly what we’ve been practicing all week and really since the last time we played them,” said West coach Joe Muniz, whose team lost 61-53 Feb. 12 at East St. Louis after beating the Flyers 69-48 at home on Dec. 18. “We moved the ball well with the pass and we weren’t in a panic. We took good shots and we shot layups.
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“In the second half they upped their pressure about 100 times compared to what it was in the first half and we panicked a little bit. But in the postseason you’ve got to win and survive and that’s all you’ve got to do. We got our composure enough to win the game.”
While West hurt itself with turnovers in the second half, poor shooting was the primary reason why East St. Louis ended its season at 12-13. The Flyers shot 29 percent (17 for 59) from the field.
“Our stat man had us for 13 missed layups,” said East St. Louis coach Dennis Brooks. “They were open and they were uncontested, so what can you say? You’ve got to go strong to the basket and we’re going up there thinking someone is going to block us.”
A jumper by Julian Doss gave West its biggest lead of the game, 22-10, midway through the second quarter. But East St. Louis came back to tie the score at 28-28 on a layup by Keante Minor with 2:06 remaining in the third quarter. West missed its seven shots from the field and finished the quarter 1 for 8, but still led 32-28.
“We didn’t play very well in the second half, but I thought we played pretty well in the first half,” said Maroons junior Kane Sweeney, who scored a team-high 18 points. “We turned the ball over a lot in the second half, but we’ll work on that and fix it Friday.”
East St. Louis took a 35-34 lead on a steal and a layup by freshman Deshaun Munson with 6:02 to play in the fourth quarter and led again 39-38 on two free throws by Minor with 2:19 remaining.
West led 42-39 with 1:27 remaining and had a chance to add to its lead with senior Justin Clayborne at the free throw line.
Clayborne missed both free throws, but the Maroons grabbed the rebound and scored five seconds later on a layup by Sweeney, who added a free throw to make the score 45-39.
“That was huge,” Sweeney said. “Mike (Schmidt) got the rebound and just kicked it out. Justin had a great pass to me in the lane.”
“That was the play of the game because we were up three at the time and that put us up by six,” Muniz said. “But we came right back down and fouled them and they made a shot to cut it down to three.
“Kane made some big shots down the stretch and we got the ball inside to him and he scored. Justin made a nice high-low feed to him and we got a layup when we were down by one.”
East St. Louis twice got within two points, the last time with 16 seconds left on a layup by Deante Thomas. But Sweeney hit one free throw with 13 seconds remaining to make the score 49-46.
After Minor missed a trey with six seconds on the clock, the Flyers called a timeout with 2.5 seconds to play. Ronald Anthony took the in-bounds pass from Minor and missed a 3-pointer and Minor’s rebound basket at the buzzer left East St. Louis one point short.
“(Anthony) is one of our 3-point shooters, but we were really looking for Thomas or (Brandon) Weston to take the shot and they didn’t get open,” Brooks said. “Anthony got the look, but he didn’t knock it down.”
Minor led East St. Louis with 18 points while Thomas added 12. Clayborne scored 16 points for West. The Maroons were 16 for 28 from the free throw line, including 10 of 19 in the fourth quarter.
“Am I happy with our execution down the stretch? No, but we haven’t played like that the last two or three weeks,” Muniz said. “I’m confident that we’ll come out Friday night and we’ll compete and do a lot better in handling that situation.”
West and O’Fallon split a pair of Southwestern Conference games, with the Maroons earning a 64-45 win at OTHS on Feb. 19.
“O’Fallon is the second-best team in the state and they did not play their best game against us and we played pretty well that night,” Muniz said. “They’re the team that everybody is picking to go to state and they’ve had the best year out of anybody.
“They’re going to come in with revenge (on their minds) and we’re going to give them our best shot. Our kids respect them, but we’re going to go after them just like they’re going to go after us.”
