A good time to end a slump
Owens leads Central to tourney title game
The little man in the backcourt picked a big time to find his jump shot.
Deadre Owens broke out of a season-long scoring slump in Plainfield Central's 57-50 victory over Romeoville in the large-school division championship game at the 31st annual Lemont Christmas Classic on Dec. 29.
Owens, a 5-foot-6-inch senior guard, scored 11 of his 14 points in the second half as the Wildcats built a 15-point third-quarter lead and then withstood a furious charge from the Spartans in a boys basketball game where late-drama made up for some poor shooting and slopping ball handling.
Central (7-3) led 36-21 after Jeff Allen took a pass from Dontae King and scored with 6:11 remaining in the third quarter. Allen went on to score a team-high 16 points for the Wildcats. He also grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds and made a nuisance of himself on the low post.
Romeoville (7-3) couldn't stop Allen or keep the Wildcats off the boards in the first half and spotted Central leads of 24-11 and 28-15.
Finally, in the second half, the Spartans started to battle back behind the play of Demarius Miller (18 points, eight rebounds, five steals), Earl Bell (13 points, nine rebounds) and Devon Hodges (12 points, six rebounds, three blocks).
Owens scored off a feed from Derek Marks on a fast break layup to extend the Wildcats' lead to 47-41. Then, after Miller rained down a 3 for Romeoville, Owens answered with a corner three-pointer of his own to give Central a 50-43 lead and the momentum they needed to hold off the Spartans.
"We were trying to slow it up and I felt like we all had the pressure on us," Owens said. "But we got that steal and the breakaway and that set it off. When I got that layup and then a minute later made that 3, that raised our momentum.
"And then our defense shut them down. They were done."
Central faced Providence St. Mel on Dec. 30 in the tournament's overall championship game.
Central outrebounded Romeoville 28-14 in the first half and 55-38 for the game. Arthur Gage, a 6-8 junior, grabbed 10 rebounds. Marks had eight boards, three assists and two steals.
"Well, the whole thing is the whole tournament, if you've seen us play all three games, we've had the lead and we've let teams back in," Virostko said. "But we're learning how to win at the end of the game, I guess.
"We need to take care of the ball better when the heat goes up. And we got better today than we were against Sandburg (Central beat the Eagles 59-53). If you watched the whole Sandburg game, there was a 14-point run in about two minutes. It wasn't quite as bad tonight, but still we need to work on closing out games.
"But I was proud of our effort early. I thought the defensive intensity is what the set the tone early. And we got the ball inside. They're a great rebounding team. I was surprised we were able to outrebound them early. That obviously changed later on, and that's why they were able to make a run," he said.
Allen scored 12 of his 16 points in the first half. He made seven of 17 shots.
South (6-5) played T.F. South.
The Cougars shot a disappointing 11-of-39, but they led at the close of every quarter finally pulling away from East with 1:43 to play in the fourth quarter. South led 41-39, but East had the ball looking to score. An East turnover at midcourt led to an easy basket that put South ahead 43-39. The Cougars converted six of eight free throws in the last 49 seconds to seal the win.
Luke Gundersen led all scorers with 17 points. Christian Davis added 10 points for the Cougars.
