Boys basketball: Indian Creek loses to hot-starting Ashton-Franklin Center in regional final

HINCKLEY – Joe Piekarz said he knew streaky-shooting Ashton-Franklin Center was going to go through some hot stretches.

After the Raiders scored 16 of the game's first 19 points, the Indian Creek boys basketball coach said his team tried to take advantage of any cold stretch – but there just weren't enough of them.

The fourth-seeded Timberwolves cut the lead to seven in the final minutes after trailing by double digits most of the game but lost, 80-70, to the second-seeded Raiders in the championship game of the Class 1A Hinckley-Big Rock Regional.

"We know they ride a lot of high highs, then they have some lulls," Piekarz said. "We knew they were going to go through that. After they had that really high high in the beginning, we just had to stay the course and keep having good possessions."

After falling down 19-3 in the first 5:20 – including a 13-0 run that took just 1:20 – the Timberwolves (16-14) didn't get the lead to single digits again until 5:18 left left in the game. The teams traded buckets, then Bret Gittleson broke out of his 3-point shooting slump to hit a big 3-pointer, then Jacob Hilliker got a steal on the inbounds pass and a layup to pad the lead back to 14 at 70-56.

The Timberwolves got it back to 72-65 with 1:17 left, but the Raiders (22-9) hit their free throws the rest of the way for the win. They advanced to the Somonauk Sectional and will face Newark in a semifinal.

"We just found the open guy, hit the open shot," Raiders coach Russ Zick said. "We got a lot of turnovers early, forced them on them, and that helped a lot. Then the big shot by Bret. ... Then we hit some free throws down the stretch. It was very hard to win this game."

Zick said he was impressed in how his team responded late – at one point in the fourth quarter the Raiders were called for 10 fouls in the second half to Indian Creek's two. Center Kevin Kurz picked up his fourth foul in the first half and fouled out early in the fourth.

"It was tough because it just didn't seem like we were getting calls," Zick said. "It was really hard, but I don't know how we did it."

Hilliker finished with 25 points and four steals. He was 5 of 6 from the line and 4 of 10 on 3-pointers. Gittleson was 2 of 12 from long range, but finished with 16 points, eight rebounds and two blocks. David Zinke added 14 points and seven rebounds for the Raiders.

"Overall it's a great team win for us because everybody did their job," Zick said.

David Boehne scored 20 for the Timberwolves with six rebounds, while Drew Winterton had 14 points, Charles Schmitt had 12 points and seven rebounds for the Timberwolves.

Piekarz said he was happy with the season the Timberwolves had.

"As a coach you always just want your team to be peaking at the end of the season," Piekarz said. "That's all you could ever ask for, and this team did that. We played our best basketball the last two weeks of the year and by far our best basketball this week. That's all you can ask."