As his team continued to gain momentum towards the end of the regular season, Metea Valley coach Bob Vozza has been consistent with his mantra that his team will go only as far as its defense will take it.
On Wednesday night in Hillside, that trend continued with an assist from an offensive attack that continued to flow with precision.
Making life tough on ninth-seeded Addison Trail at both ends, eight-seeded Metea Valley cruised to its ninth straight victory as it posted a 68-44 rout of the Blazers in a Class 4A Proviso West Regional Semifinal.
Three Mustangs, led by Ron Edwards and Dei’Ron Delarosa each going for a team-high 15 points, scored in double figures as the team collectively eight three-pointers.
Delarosa hit three 3s while Matt Helwig hit two of his own as part of putting forth a 10-point night off the bench.
“It looked like in the beginning of the game, the game kind of slowed down and we were kind of feeling out, playoff game, brand new (experience). But we’ve relied on our defense for a month-and-a-half, almost two months now and we got it,” Vozza said. “And this time of year, those teams are going to advance.
“So it’s what kept us in it early when things weren’t falling down offensively, when we were turning it over a little bit in the first half. Then our confidence kind of grew on the defensive end from there and shots start falling the second half for sure I like when we can get transition because we get good looks there.”
Metea Valley (17-12) returns to its first regional final since 2012 opposite top-seeded Lyons Township.
Helwig’s 10 points all came in the first half as the Mustangs overcame an early five-point Addison Trail lead by ending the first quarter on an 8-2 run to take a three-point lead.
Both of Helwig’s threes came during a second quarter that saw Metea Valley go into halftime up 29-22 after concluding it on a 13-6 run, capped by a Helwig triple with 2:29 left in the half.
Meanwhile, Edwards had 13 of his 15 points in the second half that saw the Mustangs outscore the Blazers, 39-22, in the game’s final 16 minutes.
Edwards scored eight straight points for the Mustangs during a fourth-quarter stretch that saw their lead go from 17 points to 19 points.
“Dei’Ron passed me the ball. I was wide open. So I give him a lot of credit for passing me the ball and going to try to get offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds so I can help the team out,” Edwards said. “So that really helped me out.”
While Eric Grygo, who led the Blazers with a team-high 12 points, was battling Mark Konkle inside, Vozza asked senior Nick Dodson to track Addison Trail senior forward Taylor White.
Dodson, who hit a pair of triples on his way to a nine-point night, permitted White to that same point total as White only scored three points after halftime.
“We came out (hard). Our plan was to come out strong defensively and we know that if we play defense, our offense will take care of itself,” Dodson said. “So we really pushed transition offense. We know we’re faster than a lot of teams. I think that helped us out a lot (Wednesday) night, too.
“To lock (White) up; I wanted to keep him out of double digits and just try to do my part by keeping him to a limited amount of points.”
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