Streator starts strong in both halves, holds off L-P late

LA SALLE – With a month left before postseason seeding, the Streator boys basketball team added to its resume Tuesday.

The Bulldogs built a 16-point lead in the first quarter, extended a seven-point halftime lead to 19 by early in the fourth quarter and held off a late surge to win 58-50 at La Salle-Peru, a sub-sectional opponent that Streator beat by just one point in the season opener.

“We’ve got another big one Saturday (at Morris). That’s the last time we’ll play a sub-sectional opponent before seeding,” Streator coach Beau Doty said. “Any time you get road wins, especially against teams in your sub-sectional, it can do nothing but help you. We still have 10 games before seeding, but obviously it puts us in a position where we can control things with how we play.”

The Bulldogs raced ahead early Tuesday as Nolan Lukach drained a 3-pointer on the game’s first possession and Matt Williamson followed with two more to give Streator a 9-0 lead and the they led the rest of the way.

Streator pushed it to 18-2 on a three-point play by Isaiah Weibel before the Cavs closed it to 18-7 at the end of the first quarter.

L-P went on a 9-0 run to finish the first half with Streator leading 25-18.

“We jumped them from the start,” Williamson said. “We were playing good defense. We were moving the ball on offense. We were just making shots. We didn’t have a good second quarter. We had some stretches where we didn’t play well. I think that’s why we only won by eight. I think it could have been a little bit more, but overall we played pretty well.”

Like they did to start the game, the Bulldogs came out hot in the third quarter, scoring the first seven points as Lukach scored a bucket, Blaize Bressner knocked down a 3 on an assist from Tristan Finley and Williamson drove for a basket to put Streator up 32-18.

“It was huge to come out with momentum because they had it all going into halftime,” Williamson said. “In the locker room we were all talking about what we could do better. I think we did a good job coming out after half and executing what we needed to.

“We were getting stagnant at times on offense (in the first half) and we weren’t moving the ball very well. We could have defended better in transition.”

The Bulldogs went into the fourth leading 50-33 after Weibel sank a 3 with 1.6 seconds left in the third.

Williamson gave Streator its largest lead of the night at 52-33 with a driving bucket to start the fourth before the Cavaliers rallied.

Nick Olivero canned a pair of 3s, Erick Sotelo hit a long-range shot and a driving basket by Marion Persich cut L-P’s deficit to 54-48 with 2:20 left.

“We played six minutes out of 32 is what happened tonight,” L-P coach John Senica said. “We didn’t play defense. We didn’t close out on 3s. We didn’t box out and rebound.

“We’ve dug ourselves out of holes in almost every single game we’ve played. I’m proud of the kids for how they fought. But if we don’t have those big deficits and do what we’re supposed to do, it’s a completely different game. We’ve had way too many of those this year.”

The Cavs never got closer as they only managed one more basket, while the Bulldogs made 4 of 6 free throws down the stretch.

“Those last four minutes seemed like an eternity,” Doty said. “They did a good job extending the game like they had to. We were a little sloppy at times. A couple bounces didn’t go our way. They hit some shots. You have to give them credit. We were able to hold. We fought through, persevered and found a way to make our free throws when we needed them.”

Jacob Hagie made several key plays for the Bulldogs in the final minutes as he blocked a 3-point attempt, grabbed a defensive rebound and got a steal that led to a pair of free throws.

“He’s got a nose for the ball,” Doty said. “He’s an athlete. He’s just a tough competitor. He’s a guy who you definitely trust in late game situations to make plays. It’s going to look like a zero in the scorebook but he had his fingerprints all over the game.”

Lukach led the Bulldogs (12-4) with a game-high 17 points, while Williamson scored 16 and Weibel added 13.

Mikey Hartman scored 14 to lead L-P (8-11), while Olivero added 12.