Given a week to stew about a 37-point loss at West Aurora, motivation wasn’t going to be much of an issue Friday night for Neuqua Valley.
The fact fellow District 204 rival Waubonsie Valley was its opposition didn’t hurt matters either.
Armed by three players scoring in double figures, coupled with clamping down defensively on the Warriors for much of the night, Neuqua Valley cruised to a 65-36 Upstate Eight Valley victory over Waubonsie Valley, clinching the 2015 UEC Valley title outright in the process.
Connor Raridon, Jacob Cushing and Joe Sieger all scored in double figures for Neuqua Valley (22-4, 11-2), which ended the first half on a 21-4 run to take a 15-point lead into halftime and effectively ending all the night’s drama en route to clinching the program’s third straight division title.
“We didn’t play nearly as well as we can at West Aurora (last week) and so we knew we needed to come out and really play our best, as best as possible,” said senior Logan Wallace, who had two of the Wildcats’ nine three-pointers.
The North Central College-bound Raridon, one of two players to win three conference titles at Neuqua Valley, alongside former standout Dwayne Evans, had a game-high 17 points while Sieger added 10.
Cushing had 10 of his 15 points during the 21-4 first-half run, including hitting on two of his three-pointers.
“That (run to end the first half) really helped us. (The Warriors) like to play really slow and we got out in transition. We were running, getting steals and just playing really great defense,” Cushing said.
With Waubonsie Valley (10-15, 3-10) holding an early two-point lead at 8-6 after a three-pointer with 3:02 left in the first from Chris McGough, who had a team-high nine points, Neuqua Valley held the Warriors off the scoreboard until Darnell Smith scored with 3:12 left in the first half.
The Warriors’ senior combination of Chris Karkazis and Logan Yanisch struggled mightily against a Wildcats’ defense that permitted all of the Warrior seniors to shoot a combined four-of-17 from the floor.
Karkazis and Yanisch combined for just five points for the Warriors, who had a three-game winning streak snapped.
“(Neuqua Valley) did a good job. I think they held us to 21 percent (shooting) for the game, so we struggled shooting (Friday) night,” Waubonsie Valley coach Chaz Taft said.
Aside from McGough’s nine points, the Warriors got eight points from sophomore Luke Gregorio.
“Their man-to-man is pretty good and then they switched to that zone. We just couldn’t really penetrate it and we passed the ball on the wing too much,” Gregorio said of the Wildcats’ suffocating defense. “We didn’t move the ball as much as we should of. They played really well.”
Claiming a third straight division crown, the Wildcats end their time in the UEC with nine conference titles in their 17 years as part of the conference.
For the newly-minted No. 1 seed in the Class 4A Bolingbrook Sectional, it’s an accomplishment not to take lightly.
“It’s just the marathon. We talked about it in December. ‘It’s going to be a marathon and you’re going to have some ups and downs and whoever wins the most games wins the conference,’” Neuqua Valley coach Todd Sutton said. “It was on the goal list. You know, we wanted to win it.”
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