Vikings seeing 20/20
Palmer, Ogom come up big as H-F rolls past Bolingbrook
Josiah Palmer, RJ Ogom and the rest of the Vikings Nation will love to hear what Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost declared after Friday night’s game.
“When HomewoodFlossmoor plays like that,” he said, “I don’t know if there is anyone in the state that can beat them.”
The Vikings were unbeatable against the Raiders.
Palmer, a senior guard, scored a game-high 21 points and Ogom, a senior forward, added 20 as H-F converted 10 3-pointers in a 71-56 SouthWest Suburban Blue victory.
Despite the double-digit win for H-F (20-3, 4-0), Ogom spoke in glowing terms about Bolingbrook (20-5, 3-1) and how the Vikings pulled out the win.
“It’s all preparation,” Ogom said. “Bolingbrook is a really, really good team with a lot of really good players soweknewwewere going to have to execute if wewere going to beat them.
“For us, it was all about mindset. Even when we were up on them at halftime, we talked about not letting our foot off the gas.”
Palmer also impressed with his sharpshooting performance. He ended up making 5 of 6 shots from 3-point range.
“Once we started running in transition, everything started clicking for me.” Palmer said. “We worked all week in practice and I had a good feel howto beat the defense they were in.”
Despite the loss, Bolingbrook received another great performance from senior guard Darius Burford, who scored a teamhigh 19 points.
Even Burford was resigned to the fact H-F had an amazing game. He confirmed the Raiders will see them again.
“They played terrific,” Burford said of the Vikings. “When they shoot like that, it’s really hard to beat them because they are already a great team.
“We play them again though down the road. We are going to go back to the lab and work on some things, andwe will be ready for them next time.”
Before the game, H-F put an emphasis on playing better defense after losing in their previous outing against Hillcrest due to a subpar effort.
Ogom talked about how they turned around their defense.
“We played with a lot of fire,” Ogom said. “We lost one to Hillcrest and it got to us. Playing against another good opponent, we did not want to drop another one.
“We played with a lot of passion on both sides of the floor throughout the game and that is what led to the victory.”
John Romando is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.