Boys Basketball: Lyons edges out Downers North

Updated: February 10, 2012 10:06PM

Downers North dictated the pace but Lyons won the race.

Forced to play a slowdown game that wasn’t to their liking, the hosts Lions stayed patient and outscored Downers North 13-3 in the fourth quarter to pull out a 38-30 West Suburban Conference Silver Division victory in LaGrange that kept their slim conference title hopes alive.

Lyons (9-12, 5-4) snapped a three-game losing streak while extending the Trojans’ losing skein to nine.

“Downers’ coaches and players did a great job of understanding where they had an advantage,” Lyons coach Tom Sloan said. “They had size so if we were out chasing them they could pass over the top of us and they were patient and waited for opportunities to score.

“I think they were willing to hold it as long as they wanted to and then we made just enough plays to get the lead, and then once we got the lead and forced them to score a little earlier, we could play our regular defense.”

After Lyons scored the first four points of the game, the Trojans (4-17, 0-9) went on a 13-1 run to take their largest lead, 13-5, following back-to-back baskets by Rimas Barsketis.

Jarryd Heath broke the visitors’ momentum with a three-pointer. That was a sign of things to come, though Downers managed to hang onto the lead through three quarters.

Heath, a 6-1 junior guard, drained another three 12 seconds into the fourth quarter to give the Lions a 28-27 lead. That triggered a decisive 11-0 run in which Lyons held Downers scoreless for nearly five minutes.

“We just kept shooting and playing our game,” said Heath, who finished with nine points. “We didn’t let them bother us and didn’t let them slow us down. We just kept our mind in the game and didn’t let that [slowdown] bother us very much and we kept playing our own game at our own tempo.”

Heath’s go-ahead three allowed the Lions to play at their more up-tempo pace. They used a full-court press to force turnovers on the next two possessions and they cashed in with a fourth-chance putback by Matt Robare and a conventional three-point play and a trey from Kenny Smith to extend the cushion to 36-27 with 5:28 left.

Downers North answered with a three-pointer by Dennis Blake at the 3:36 mark, but those were the only points the visitors scored in the fourth quarter as they went just 1-for-11 from the field.

“The difference in the game was we made two threes in the fourth quarter and our defense was disruptive,” Sloan said. “Defensively the kids did a really good job, especially on the defensive boards where we limited them to one shot.

“We did a better job of protecting the lane, challenging shots, rebounding. When we were able to get into our full-court defense that helped us change the tempo and the way the game was flowing.”

Smith led the Lions with 11 points, four rebounds and three steals, while Chris O’Reilly added eight points and three assists. Heath made only 3 of 11 shots, all three-point attempts, but each was important. His other trey came in the fourth quarter after the Trojans had taken their largest lead, 25-21, of the second half.

“Most of the kids know that they can shoot it when they’re open and we definitely encourage Jarryd to shoot it for sure,” Sloan said.

Blake tallied a game-high 15 points, including three treys, for Downers North, while also received nine points, five rebounds and two assists from Rob Mahlke.

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