Boys Basketball: Thornwood’s fast start beats Thornton

Darrell Combs had waited a long time to beat Thornton. Thanks to social media, he also had some extra motivation.

Combs and his Thornwood teammates got off to a great start and put SouthWest Suburban Conference Red rival Thornton in too big of a hole to get out of while coming away with a 59-48 victory in Harvey on Friday.

``We were so fired up to play them,’’ Combs said. ``They were talking trash on Twitter all week. This is the first time that I’ve ever beaten them in my four years here.’’

The Thunderbirds (13-5, 6-0) raced out to a 10-0 lead as Combs scored six of his 18 points in the opening run.

The situation only got worse for Thornton (7-10, 5-2), which dug itself into a 38-18 halftime hole. Johnte Shannon joined Combs with the hot hand by scoring 15 of his 17 points in the half. The Thunderbirds forced Thornton into 10 turnovers and 30 percent shooting, and controlled the boards while scoring easy baskets off of fast breaks.

``This game is like the Cubs versus the Sox,’’ Thornwood coach Paul Slavich said. ``It’s a big rivalry. Erase the records when we play them. I was surprised but happy when we got that lead. This is a tough place to play.’’

The Wildcats made a comeback attempt in the second half but the margin was too big to overcome. Joshua Russell scored 12 of his 14 and Justin Taylor scored 12 of his 18 in the half. Marvin Jones curtailed the easy Thornwood baskets with six blocks in the half.

The Wildcats managed to cut the lead to 51-44 with 5:10 left in the game on a Russell putback basket but that’s as close as Thornton could get.

Khapri Alston stopped that run by scoring the next six points. Alston finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

Thornwood will next face Andrew Sunday in a battle of conference unbeatens.

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