Boys Basketball: Deerfield staves off Maine West

Updated: January 20, 2012 11:28PM

Deerfield rallied from an eight-point third-quarter deficit and then held on at the end to defeat Maine West 37-35 Friday night in Des Plaines. The game was delayed by more than one half hour due to the weather conditions.

Deerfield (7-9, 3-3) took a 36-28 lead with 1:22 left in the Central Suburban North contest on a free throw by Eric Porter. But Maine West (8-8, 3-3) forward Conor Hart scored the next seven points, including a three-point play with 18 seconds left to bring Maine West to within 36-35. Porter then hit a free throw with 11 seconds remaining to move Deerfield ahead 37-35. Hart drove to the basket and let a shot go as the buzzer sounded but the ball rimmed off.

Porter came off the bench and scored all 12 of his points in the second half, including 3-3 on three-pointers to rally Deerfield from an 18-10 deficit early in the third quarter.

“He’s (Porter) really good now - a pure shooter,” Deerfield coach JJ Pearl said about his sophomore. “He’s going to be really, really good in a couple of years.”

“I set my feet and felt some rhythm,” Porter, who had been in a shooting slump, said.

Alex Sacks added 12 points for Deerfield along with five rebounds and three steals. Mack Watts chipped in nine rebounds and four points. Hart led Maine West with 11 points and Tom Kukec scored 7. Cody Zimmerman, Maine West’s 6-9 center had 10 rebounds.

“We had an opportunity to tie or win it at the end,” Maine West coach Erik McNeil said. “But before that we lost our composure a little bit out there.”

Maine West had defeated Deerfield twice this season, once in conference play and the other time at the Wheeling Holiday Tournament.

Maine West forward Matt Solis hurt his right knee in the second quarter trying to take a charge under the basket and had to be taken off the court in a wheelchair. Early reports were that it was an injury to his ACL.

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