Faced with having to rebound from a defeat for the first time this season, Neuqua Valley welcomed Glenbard East to town Saturday with one goal in mind.
Rebound.
Hounding the glass with reckless abandonment, Neuqua Valley controlled the glass while getting scoring from nine different sources on its way to picking up a 68-45 Upstate Eight Valley victory over Glenbard East.
Eight different Wildcats corralled at least one rebound, with Connor Raridon and Jacob Eminger pacing the assault on the glass with six boards apiece while Logan Wallace and Zac Lendino combined to pull down nine rebounds.
“We’ve been dominating the boards all year. We got pounded on the boards (Friday) night by Bartlett and they took it to us and we got back on the boards (Saturday) night and we won,” Neuqua Valley coach Todd Sutton said. “When you control the glass, you get out on your running game, you get the ball up court and when the shots aren’t falling, like our three-point shots haven’t been falling, when you get offensive boards, you’re either getting fouled or you’re putting it in (the basket).”
A night after going 1-for-17 from the three-point line in a 59-54 loss at Bartlett, Neuqua Valley (7-1, 3-1) combined to hit five three-pointers collectively, as Joe Sieger led the way with his two three-pointers.
Raridon and George paced everyone with their respective game-high scoring efforts of 15 points while Eminger added 12 for the Wildcats.
“Coach (Sutton) always tries to get everybody in the game, in case somebody gets hurt or somebody gets in foul trouble like (Friday) night (at Bartlett),” Sieger said of the team’s balance. “And we all go at each other hard in practice. So we all try to make each other better every day.”
The Wildcats used a pair of first-half runs to gain some separation from Glenbard East, with the first run coming in the first quarter.
After the Rams used a Zach Walsh triple and a pair of free throws from Bryce Robers to take a quick 5-1 lead, the Wildcats countered by going on a 16-6 run to end the quarter with a six-point lead.
With Glenbard East (4-4, 2-2) creeping a little closer midway through the second, Neuqua Valley answered by using an 11-2 run to end the half to take a 10-point lead into halftime.
From there, the Wildcats led in double figures for much of the second half and by as much as 23 points as Alex Edwards became the 10th Wildcat to score with his basket with 26 seconds remaining to close out the game’s scoring.
“We were trying to still figure what defense they were in. They were switching between zone and man,” George said. “We just wanted to start getting up the court and running our stuff to see what they’re in and then get the ball in the middle and go from there. Offensive rebounding was a big thing. Offensive rebounding and finishing when we grabbed it, as well.”
Not exactly pleased with how his team shot the ball in its two games this week against Bartlett and Glenbard East, despite shooting it well most of the week in practice, Sutton challenged his charges to get on the offensive glass.
And it’s a message that was taken to heart at an opportune time.
“Just the ability to bounce back from a tough loss, like mentally bounce back from a loss,” Eminger said when asked his takeaway from the Wildcats’ seventh victory on the season. “(Friday) wasn’t our day and (Saturday), we were able to come out (and execute) and I think that’s going to help us in the long run.”
Walsh led the Rams with a team-high 12 points while Terrance Lakes added 10.[shareprints gallery_id=”1098″ gallery_type=”squares” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”small” image_padding=”3″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”false” lightbox_type=”slide” comments=”true” sharing=”true”]
