Bowers, Hillcrest cause ‘havoc’ for Lemont
Junior guard’s 2 dunks off steals in 4th quarter punctuate Hawks’ win
There was only one thing on Hillcrest junior guard Hamahrie Bowers’ mind when he came up with two steals just past the midway point of the fourth quarter at Lemont on Friday.
“I just (saw) the ball and that rim,” Bowers said as he broke into a smile. “And that’s it.”
Bowers finished each of those plays with authority. His back-toback dunks not only pushed the Hawks’ lead to nine points with 4:23 left, but also drew a thunderous response from the sizable Hillcrest crowd.
The Hawks had the burst of energy they needed to finish off a 75-65 South Suburban Blue victory.
Hillcrest (17-7, 9-1), which got a team-high 20 points from junior guard Mar’Keise Irving, led by at least seven points over the final four-plus minutes of its fifth straight win.
“It took a little of their momentum away,” Hillcrest coach Don Houston said of the dunks. “When we had those plays, it got our fans going. They were real supportive tonight. It got them going; it got our team going. We just started playing with a lot of energy from that point on.”
Buoyed by seven 3-pointers, Lemont (13-9, 6-4) had answered every Hillcrest punch over the first three quarters. The Indians were led by senior forward Kyle Lillwitz’s 19 points.
The teams traded the lead five times in the third quarter alone, with neither building a lead of
more than the Indians’ four-point advantage.
But that’s when the Hawks began to turn up the defensive pressure. They scored five straight points to open the fourth quarter, including a basket off of a steal.
Hillcrest scored 10 points off turnovers in the second half— in large part due to the pressure caused by junior guard Kenton Wright and Irving, who scored four of his nine third-quarter points off turnovers.
Irving converted a Wright steal into a layup just over a minute into the fourth quarter, and Wright then hit a jumper to push the Hawks’ lead to 55-47 with 6:18 left.
“Those two guys, they’re three-year varsity basketball players, so they know how to get up under you and just play defense,” Houston said. “We expect them to do that every game we play, be disruptive. They did it.”
That pressure extended to the entire team, with Bowers, who had 14points and six rebounds, putting the exclamation point on it— twice.
“Our strength is causing havoc on defense and creating defensive steals and getting our guys out and running on the floor,” Wright said.
Itwas both the pressure defense and the Hawks’ rebounding in the second half — Hillcrest grabbed eight offensive rebounds and scored nine secondchance points after halftime — that hurt the Indians.
“They’re good at those kind of runs,” Lemont coach Rick Runaas said. “Unfortunately, that’s kind of been the history of this matchup the last five or six years. We play even for a half, then we just kind of wear out physically and mentally. They’re very good. They’re well- coached. They just keep coming at you. They bring athletes in, and they keep pushing it.”