Golden Glover
Senior forward takes on key defensive assignment as Hillcrest tops Oak Forest for share of 33rd conference title in 34 years
Senior forward Marcus Glover has embraced his role as the one to do all the tough, scrappy things inside for Hillcrest.
A big part of that Friday night was defending Oak Forest’s Robbie Avila, the Indiana Statebound star.
Challenge accepted. “Pregame, coach (Don Houston) gave me the assignment of guarding him,” Glover said of Avila. “I took that to heart to make sure he doesn’t score as much as possible.
“I fronted him anytime I could, tried to be aggressive and just played like it was my last game.”
Glover more than held his own defensively. He also scored 10 points and pulled down seven rebounds as the host Hawks clinched at least a share of their 33rd conference championship in the last 34 seasons with a 65-57 South Suburban Blue victory.
“It means a lot to win the conference,” said Glover, who’s in his first season with Hillcrest after transferring from Homewood-Flossmoor. “This Hawks tradition has been going on for a long time, and we’ve just been fighting to maintain it and represent that ‘Hawks’ on our chest every day.”
Bryce Tillery scored 14 points to lead Hillcrest (23-2, 12-0), which can clinch the SSC Blue title outright and its second straight unbeaten conference season with a victory over Lemont on Feb 11.
Darrion Baker and Aa’Reyon Munir-Jones each added 11 points for the Hawks, while Baker also contributed five rebounds.
Avila finished with 15 points and six rebounds for the Bengals (20-6, 8-4), who rallied from a 21-point deficit in the fourth quarter to make things interesting late.
Drew Pagnusat scored 14 points, Fred Robinson added 13 points and six rebounds and Taurean Mickens also had 10
points for Oak Forest.
Glover set the tone early, scoring six points as Hillcrest jumped to a 13-0 lead and grabbed a 19-4 advantage after one quarter. Avila could not get a clean look inside
and had to play more of a perimeter-based game.
“Marcus puts on his hard hat for us every night now,” Houston said
of Glover. “He’s learned how to do that. He wasn’t always doing that at first, but now he’s doing it consistently.
“He’s playing tough. He’s crashing the glass hard. He’s guarding the other team’s best big men. He helped us to get that lead early, and for us to hold them to four points in the first quarter, that was a lot on Marcus.”
Tillery has been impressed with how far Hillcrest’s trio of post players — Glover, Baker and Matthew Moore — have come this season.
“From the beginning until now, they’ve gotten way better,” Tillery said. “From catching the ball to finishing to rebounding and defending, everything.”
Hillcrest led 55-34 before a 3-pointer from Pagnusat with 6:15 left in the game started a 13-0 run for Oak Forest, which eventually cut the Hawks’ lead to 61-57 with 1:15 to go.
Tillery and Munir-Jones each hit a pair of free throws, however, in the final minute to seal the win.
“We’ve got to learn not to take our foot off the gas,” Tillery said. “We kind of let up a little bit. We had to finish the game off and we did that.”
The Bengals scored 21 points in less than six minutes during their furious rally.
“Our guys are competitors,” Oak Forest coach Matt Manzke said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t start out, obviously, the way we wanted to. When you’re climbing up the hill, it’s tough to come back.
“But our guys have a winning mentality. They fight and compete and they weren’t going to let us get run out of the gym. Hopefully, this is a learning experience, playing a great team like Hillcrest.”