By Mark Gregory
@Hear_The_Beard
This was supposed to be next year.
With a talented and young roster, everyone outside of the Joliet West locker room predicted good things for the Tigers next season when the team would be a year older.
However, the Tigers didn’t want to wait.
West defeated Oswego 48-41 Friday night to win the Lockport Sectional.
The Tigers will play Benet at 7:30 pm Tuesday night at the DeKalb Supersectional at Northern Illinois University for the chance to play in Peoria.
“I am proud of these kids,” said Benet coach Nick DiForti. “We hit a drought right after Pontiac and everyone doubted us, even locally. But, they are young and they are going to go through those roller coasters. That is the seventh game in a row we have won and that is a testament to the kids to realize in mid February that they need to mature or it will be the end of the season.”
West came out aggressive, leading 9-2 after the first quarter and 26-13 at half.
Oswego made a run of its own, cutting the lead to 28-24 after three, but West came back. Led by Teyvion Kirk, who scored all 11 of his points in the fourth quarter, the Tigers held Oswego at bay to claim the win.
West got balanced scoring, as Trevian Bell led the team with 12 points, while Tabyous Casterberry and Kirk 11 added each. Jason Bingham scored seven early points before spraining his left ankle. He exited the game and did not return, however, DiForti said he will be ready for Tuesday.
Oswego was a two-man team, as Malique Ross and Brice Robinson combined to score 40 of the Panthers’ 41 points.
“It is not one person who does it all,” DiForti said. “You can never put your finger on just one thing. It has been a unique season with a bunch of young, great kids. I love hanging out with them. We have never had a kid score in the 30s and we have had multiple games where four or five kids are in double figures. A team that has that is very hard to defend.”
Kirk said the team understands the depth on the roster.
“With our team, we just have to share the ball and take advantages of mismatches,” he said. “This means a lot to our team, to our family, to our city. This has been a long road, a hard road, but we fought and got the win.”
Where the win happened added something extra to it for West’s Elijah Ward.
Ward sat in the stands and watched his three older brothers, Ed, Karrington and Kyle, all play for the Porters under coach Lawrence Thompson, Jr., who is now an assistant with West.
“This was pretty big,” Ward said. “I sat here as a little kid and watched them. Now, it is a dream come true.”
As West heads into the game with Benet, it will be the fourth team in a row they will play that they defeated earlier in the year, the Tigers are still looking to keep the season going.
“We are not done yet,” Bell said. “We have been talking about this since the beginning of the season. We have proved to everybody that we can be one of the best teams in the state. We are just taking full advantage of this, we could have come out in any of those games and thought it would be a cake walk because we beat them already, but we are coming out hard every game.”
If the Tigers defeat Benet, it would be the third state trophy for Joliet West this sports season, as the cheerleaders and girls bowlers both won state titles last month.
“There is a buzz and a positivity wave that we are riding,” DiForti said. “I think our athletes are learning how to win and opposed to not lose. This is the most successful Joliet West team in basketball since the split. JT had the run to the supersectional against O’Fallon and the Morris Dunnigan team played in a sectional semi. So, playing in a supersectional says a lot to our young guys and I am just really proud of them.”