OJ Powell’s 34 points powers Willowbrook past Addison Trail despite Luke Smith’s 35

VILLA PARK – Prior to tip-off Friday night, Willowbrook’s OJ Powell was honored with a commemorative basketball and banner celebrating him becoming the youngest player in school history to score 1,000 career points.

Powell, a junior who reached the milestone a week ago at Leyden, began chipping away at the next 1,000, as he scored a team-high 34 points and added a game-high 16 rebounds to lift the Warriors to a 75-67 West Suburban Conference Gold victory over rival Addison Trail (15-13, 5-5) in Villa Park.

Blazers senior guard Luke Smith, who scored 20 of his game-high 35 points in the second half, knocked down a jumper to tie the score at 64-all with 1:16 remaining.

On their next possession, the Warriors (8-19, 4-5) reversed the ball and found a wide-open senior guard Mark Murrell (17 points), who buried a 3-pointer to break the deadlock with 1:00 left.

“Mark hit a huge 3,” said Warriors coach Chris Perkins, whose team snapped a five-game losing streak while sweeping the season series from the Blazers. “He came in off the bench and gave us a huge spark.

“That was one of the matchups we were able to identify going down the stretch.”

From there, the Warriors iced the game at the free-throw line, with Powell hitting 7 of 8 foul shots in the final 25 seconds.

“OJ was active, he was everywhere,” Perkins said of Powell, who made his first six field-goal attempts while scoring 19 first-half points. “He had a great game.”

Senior Filip Palutkiewicz tallied all nind of his points in the opening half, as Willowbrook built a 39-29 lead at the intermission.

The Blazers narrowed the deficit to 54-50 after three quarters, as Smith added 13 points in the period, and the visitors finally tied the score at 57-57 on a corner 3-pointer from Manny Roque (8 points) with 6:25 remaining.

Junior Cam Salerno (13 points, 13 rebounds, four blocked shots) provided the Blazers with their first lead of the night on a layup off an inbounds feed from Dom Renc a few moments later.

But the Warriors answered with six straight points from Powell, Murrell, and junior Jaylen Griffin (10 points), before finally seizing control down the stretch.

“We needed this one bad,” said Powell. “We have to put the losses behind us, even though there’s a lot of them. We have to keep pushing as a team. We get better and better each time we play together.

“It definitely feels good to be back on the winning track.”

Perkins also credited Jaden Royal for his game-long defensive task of trying to slow down Smith.

“Royal did a great job,” said the coach. “His stuff didn’t show up on the stat sheet, but his defense was solid.

“Overall, it was a good team win. We needed it, especially a week away from the playoffs.”

Smith, who surpassed the 2,000-point mark back in December, added eight rebounds, four assists, and a pair of steals with four 3-pointers, while making all seven of his free-throw attempts.

“This has been the story for us pretty much all year — we put the ball in the basket, but we don’t consistently stop others from putting the ball in the basket,” said Blazers coach Brendan Lyons. “We’ve proven we can be in just about every game, and we’ve won our fair share, but we’d like to see more consistency, especially at the defensive end.”