Fast starts to halves lead to another ICE win for Streator, 50-36 over Reed-Custer

STREATOR – Senior sixth man Jake Hagie moved into the Streator Bulldogs' starting lineup due to a minor ankle injury to fellow 12th-grader Isaiah Weibel. Hagie remained there as Weibel has been working his way back and scored the opening bucket 29 seconds into the hosts' 50-36 victory Friday over the visiting Reed-Custer Comets.

Fueled by fast starts to both halves, Hagie’s game-opener gave the Bulldogs a lead they would never relinquish.

“We always talk about a next-man-up mentality,” Hagie said, “and we have a whole lot of guys who can play. We got stops on defense [early tonight], and then our defense turns into offense, and we keep rolling on that.”

Streator improved to 16-4 overall, 9-0 in the Illinois Central Eight Conference ahead of Saturday’s afternoon visit to old NCIC rival Rochelle.

Reed-Custer – which rallied to as close as four points twice late in the second quarter before Streator opened the second half on a 16-2 run to wax its advantage back into comfortable territory – falls to 7-14 overall, 2-7 on the ICE loop.

“Going into Pops [Dale] Gym, one of the tougher gyms to play in high school basketball, we had a big emphasis on needing to start fast in the first and third quarter,” Reed-Custer coach Tyler Schoonover said. “It just didn’t happen.

“Credit to Streator. They came out guns blazing, and we didn’t match their energy to start the first and third quarters.”

The showdown at center between two of, if not the two top big men in the ICE Conference – Reed-Custer’s Jake Reardon and Streator’s Nolan Lukach – was, as expected, a good one.

Reardon finished with a game-best 19 points on 9-of-16 shooting with 10 rebounds and six blocked shots. Lukach countered with a team-high 15 points (seven of those scored from the free-throw line) and 11 rebounds for a double-double of his own.

One thing Lukach enjoyed was a little more help from his guards, led by Blaize Bressner’s 11 points, including three 3s, six points apiece from Matt Williamson (four assists) and Hagie (three steals), and five points courtesy of Tristan Finley (four steals, game-best seven assists).

While Hagie helped lead the strong start to the first half, a pair of Bressner 3s after a Hagie bucket off a nice-look Finley assist sparked the Bulldogs’ second-half surge.

“Reed-Custer was a red-hot team coming in,” Streator coach Beau Doty said. “They’d won three in a row, scored in the 70s twice. We knew it was going to be a battle, but we got off to a great start, and that was key.

“We hit a little bit of a spurt where our ball pressure lagged ... and that’s when they got back in it. But any time Blaize gets going – he loves that third quarter – it swings momentum, and we can be really tough on offense with that added element."

For Reed-Custer, Matt Kuban added nine points, with Collin Monroe scoring five. Still, Reardon finished tallying 19 of the Comets' 36 points, six of their eight blocked shots and 10 of their 27 rebounds.

“I think Jake Reardon’s the best big in our conference, one of the best bigs in the area,” said Schoonover, whose Comets are scheduled to be back in action hosting Manteno on Tuesday. “But I give credit to Lukach as well. He’s really a good player.”

Streator, which led 26-20 at halftime but 43-26 by the end of the third, won the turnovers forced battle 17-7 but was outrebounded 27-24 and outshot 35.9% (14 of 39) to 31.5% (17 of 54).