La Salle-Peru beats the shot clock late, hangs on to top Mendota

PLANO — La Salle-Peru senior Nick Olivero said he was excited to get a chance to play some games using the 35-second shot clock for the excitement it can bring when the seconds are running low.

In Monday’s opening-round contest against Mendota at the 61st Plano Christmas Classic, Olivero got that opportunity with the No. 8-seeded Cavaliers holding the ball, up one point and the fourth-quarter game clock under 20 seconds and the shot clock close to expiring.

“I think Mikey (Hartman) had the ball on the right wing and I heard one of my coaches yell out ‘We’ve got to get a shot up,’” Olivero said. “I looked at the shot clock and it was at five, so when he passed the ball I knew I was going to have to get a shot away.”

Olivero took the pass, took a dribble to his left and let go a 3-pointer from the top of the key that swished through as the shot clock buzzer sounded.

“The best thing, besides that I made the shot, was that Mikey got me the ball with enough time to take a dribble to the middle to get my feet set and body squared up. I was able to get a pretty good look, and it felt good off my hand.”

The Trojans quickly answered with a triple by Dane Doyle with seven seconds left, but L-P was able to secure the inbounds and Jameson Hill swished two free throws after being fouled with 1.8 seconds left to provide the final 57-54 winning margin as Mendota’s final 3/4 court shot didn’t beat the final horn.

L-P (7-5) will now advance to play top-seeded Kaneland at 7 p.m. on Thursday. Mendota (6-6) will play Garnder-South Wilmington in the consolation bracket at 12:30 p.m.

Olivero led the Cavs with a game-high 18 points, including four 3s, nine rebounds and four assists. Marion Persich added 15 points and four rebounds, while Erick Sotelo chipped in 14 points and six rebounds. L-P finished 9 of 20 (45%) from beyond the arc.

“We missed way too many layups, but we started making outside shots in key moments and it turned out Nick the last one when we needed it the most,“ L-P coach John Senica said.

L-P led 13-12 after one, 27-20 at halftime and 49-39 two minutes into the fourth.

Mendota used four points by Cole Tillman, two free throws by Drew Becker and 3s by Aden Tillman and Cam Kelly to close to within 52-51 with just under a minute to go.

“I feel like Mendota trapped us a little more than we were expecting, but I also thought we did a good job of being strong with the ball and finding the open man,” Olivero said. “We also wanted to attack the defense, but when you do that, you are sometimes going to get into a double-teamed spot. You just have to keep your head up if you have the ball, and if you don’t, work to find open space for your teammates to get you the ball.”

Kelly led Mendota with 17 points, including five treys, while Cole Tillman had 16 points and four rebounds.

“While I’m not happy with the outcome, like I just told the guys in the locker room, I am absolutely not at all unhappy with their effort from start to finish,“ Mendota coach Steve Wasmer said. ”If we are going to go down, we want to go down fighting and that’s what we did. We battled.

“La Salle-Peru is a very good team and John had them prepared to take us a lot of the things we normally like to do.

“I didn’t think we defended on the ball very well. (L-P) got past us a little too easy at times, and while I thought we did a good help of helping, they were able to kick to the open man and most of the game that guy knocked down a shot. From film L-P hadn’t been shooting the 3 very well, but we’ve unfortunately done a good job this year of getting teams out of their shooting slumps.”