Romeoville's Hodges delivers a winner

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Devon Hodges is a freshman basketball player for Romeoville.

But the 6-foot-6 center played like a seasoned veteran on Tuesday when the Spartans took on Plainfield South.

Hodges scored a game-high 22 points on 9-of-10 shooting to lead the Spartans to a 67-61 win over the Cougars in Southwest Prairie Conference play.

Hodges scored 9 first-quarter points when the Spartans (14-8, 7-4) ran to a 21-15 lead. He then added 10 points in the fourth quarter when Romeoville tallied 24 points.

"Devon has really stepped up during the last few weeks," Romeoville coach Jeff Bambule said. "He is only 14 and he is playing against kids three, and in some cases, four years older than he is.

"So, it has taken him a little while to get going. But tonight, he came up big. He played a fine game for us."

Romeoville played without 6-1 senior guard Divinci Smith (ankle injury) and 6-5 senior forward Ivan Smith (stomach ailment).

"I'm pleased with the way our guys picked it up with the absence of Divinci and Ivan," Bambule said. "We were a little short in this game, but the guys really dug down deep for that something extra.

"I'm not very pleased with our decision making at times in this game. But overall, this was a good win."

Plainfield South (11-11, 4-6)came out strong in the second quarter. The Cougars forced 8 Romeoville turnovers in the second quarter, an 8-minute span in which the Spartans shot 4-of-12.

Plainfield South owned a 33-30 halftime lead. In the first half, the Cougars were led by 6-1 Ron Wisely, who scored 10 of his 12 points. Nykeese Griffin, a 5-10 guard, tallied 9 of his 13 points in the first half.

"There is not that much I can say," South coach Ken Bublitz said. "The first and fourth quarters really hurt us.

"We did some nice things, but we could not sustain them. Romeoville did a good job in transition and a good job of getting the ball inside and finishing.

"Romeoville is a good team and when they shoot well, that makes them even more difficult. Coach Bambule's teams are well-coached and they play hard. This team is no exception."

Romeoville's Timothy Lilly (15 points) hit a 3-pointer to tie the game 43-43 with 1:08 remaining in the third quarter.

South's Rakeem Jones (14 points) stole the ball, converted the layup and was fouled with 1 second left in the third quarter. He made the layup to give the Cougars a 46-43 lead entering fourth-quarter play.

After a 48-48 deadlock with 7:27 remaining in the game, the Spartans went on a decisive 11-2 run to go up 59-50 with 5:15 left. Hodges scored 8 of the Spartans' first 16 points in the fourth quarter.

Romeoville made 9 of its first 10 shots in the fourth quarter, including 4-of-4 from Hodges. Romeoville shot 69.2 percent (9-of-13) in the fourth quarter 52.9 percent (27-of-51) for the game.

"You know when you come into this gym, you are going to have to handle various types of pressure," Bambule said. "We sort of fell apart in the second quarter and fell behind at half. But we did a much better job of handling the ball in the second half.

"This was a good one to get. Any road victory is a good one."

Besides Hodges and Lilly scoring in double figures for the Spartans, Earl Bell also scored 15 points. Demarius Miller finished with 11 for Romeoville.

The Cougars' Luke Gundersen scored 12 on 5-of-7 shooting.