Southland College Prep comes back against Manteno for first-ever regional

COAL CITY – When Southland College Prep head coach Justin Johnson came to the school three years ago, he was tasked with building a boys basketball team essentially from scratch. Fast forward to Friday night, he’s already reaping the rewards.

Behind 36 points by senior David Shaw and a polarizing defense that forced 10 Manteno turnovers, the Eagles were able to pull away late from the Panthers 73-66 to earn their program’s first-ever regional title at Friday’s IHSA Class 2A Coal City Regional championship.

Southland College Prep improved to 20-7 overall on the season and will play Bismarck-Henning Wednesday at Peotone High School in the sectional semifinals. Manteno saw its season conclude at 21-12 overall. The Panthers celebrated back-to-back 20-win seasons for just the second time in program history, and their 48 wins over the past two years is the most in any two-year span ever.

“They brought me out here because they wanted to build up the program, so I started here from scratch,” Johnson said. “David [Shaw] was an incoming sophomore when I started, and I told him if he sticks with me, he works hard and we stick together, that this will be the outcome.”

Achieving that outcome was not easy though. Manteno grabbed an 18-13 lead after the first quarter and had a 34-28 lead at halftime, thanks to Ray Lee’s hot shooting effort. The Manteno career scoring leader had buzzer-beater 3-pointers in both quarters in the first half on his way to a 26-point night.

But keeping shot-for-shot with Lee was Shaw, who in the first half buried five 3-pointers, which kept the game in striking distance for the Eagles. Johnson had all the praise in the world for his talented player.

“I’ve been saying it for the last two years, David is one of the top players in the state. I feel like he’s one of the top 100 players in his class,” he said. “You know what he did tonight? He’s been proven. He has faced adversity. He never gives up.

“And we’re going to continue to show the state why he’s one of the best.”

For Manteno, the Panthers had trouble with the Eagles ferocious defense all night long and ultimately could not get the job done down the stretch when it mattered the most.

“The tempo and stuff got to us a couple times,” head coach Zack Myers said. “We kept reiterating to our guys that we needed to play at our pace. They sped us up a couple times for turnovers. We had a few good looks at the rim late, just weren’t able to capitalize on it.”

This loss means that one of the most prolific scorers in the area, Lee, had his high school basketball career end. While it is hard to see a player of Lee’s ability leave, his accomplishments in the program are not going to be understated.

“What a phenomenal job he’s done,” Myers said. “The thing people need to know about Ray was he was relentless with getting in the gym and finding shots in the summer and working with the coaching staff to get in [the gym] and put shots up. He had a great career, but he definitely deserves it because of how hard he worked to get here.”