Asked what he and his team did over its week off between its 37-point loss at West Aurora and its 29-point victory over Waubonsie Valley on Friday, Neuqua Valley coach Todd Sutton was concise.
November-style defense.
A night after clinching the outright Upstate Eight Valley title and their third straight overall, Neuqua Valley spent the first half Saturday night trying to deal with the size and athleticism of Plainfield East.
Down 10 points at half while the Bengals were physically taking it the Wildcats, Sutton’s message to his team was simple.
Just do what you know how to do
From there, both teams settled in for a game of tit-for-tat as the two team leaders, Plainfield East’s Aaron Jordan and Neuqua Valley’s Connor Raridon battled back and forth.
Behind Raridon’s team-high 18 points and getting three others in double figures, Neuqua Valley outlasted Jordan, Cole Kotopka, Elyjah Goss and Plainfield East by coming away with a 66-63 victory in double overtime.
“We went into the locker room (and Sutton) let us have it. He said we weren’t playing with any intensity. We were letting them beat us up on the backboards,” said Wildcats’ senior guard Demond George, who was right behind the North Central College-bound Raridon with 16 points. “We weren’t running good offense and we just said, ‘We got to run good offense.’ That was the only way we were going to get good shots and we just came out guns blazing just to try to get up the court.”
Raridon and George combined for 30 points in the second half and the two overtimes after the Bengals held both of them to just two points apiece in the first half.
“(Sutton) got on us a little bit at halftime saying, ‘We’re better than this. We got to pick up our energy, pick up our intensity on defense and get out and take good shots on offense and really work the ball,’” Raridon said. “We did that in the second half and it was good.”
Despite taking a lead as large as three points in the third, the Wildcats found themselves going to the fourth trailing by three after Jordan and Kotopka combined to score the last six points of the quarter to put the Bengals up 37-34.
The task Raridon and George shared for the entire night was shadowing the Illinois-bound Jordan, who tallied a game-high 20 points for Plainfield East (14-11).
With the game tied at 51-51 coming out of timeout with under 10 seconds left in regulation, Jordan was fouled with 5.8 seconds with a chance to put the Bengals in front.
Missing both free throws and with the Bengals failing to cash in on two more cracks at the basket after offensive rebounds, the game went into OT.
As Plainfield East tried to utilize a ball-control offense in both overtimes, Neuqua Valley (23-4) tallied 13 of its 15 combined points in the two overtimes from the free-throw line as Jacob Cushing, who had 12 points, had its only field goal during those eight minutes.
Making Jordan work for everything he got paid off in spades as the Wildcats forced the 6-foot-5, 190-pound Jordan into committing two offensive fouls, with one coming in each overtime.
“Just let Connor guard him. Connor always guards everybody’s best player and we knew (Jordan) was going to get his,” Sutton said. “We tried to limit the others, but we were pretty sure he was going to get 20. But he worked for it. He earned them. He’s obviously a great, great player.”
But as much as defending Jordan was a priority, finding a way to deal with the size and strength Kotopka, who had 13 points and Goss, who recorded a double-double with 14 points and 14 rebounds, was essential.
Getting 11 points and five rebounds from senior center Zac Lendino, the Wildcats got key rebounds and key stops when they needed to most.
Courtesy of his 18-point night, Raridon passed former teammate Jabari Sandifer to move into third place all-time on the Neuqua Valley scoring list with 944 points.
Raridon officially surpassed Sandifer, who’s now a sophomore at Western Illinois, with a three-pointer with 6:23 left in the third.
“Yeah, you know, it’s a nice honor. Jabari had a great career here and he’s a great player and it’s good to keep going and keep winning for our team and we just played good (Saturday) night,” Raridon said.
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