Caleb Jett, McHenry celebrate big win over Crystal Lake South

CRYSTAL LAKE – Caleb Jett scored a milestone point Friday night and put his McHenry basketball team in firm control of the Fox Valley Conference race with three weeks remaining.

Now he just has to figure out a way to beat fellow senior Kyle Maness in those free-throw ladder drills at practice.

“He’s been leading that,” a smiling Jett said. “I still can’t seem to beat him.”

The same can be said about the Warriors this season. Jett had game bests of 26 points and eight rebounds, Dylan Hurckes added 12 points, including a banked-in 3-pointer down the stretch, and Maness sank four free throws in the final 67 seconds as McHenry held off Crystal Lake South 55-52 in the teams' FVC showdown.

“The atmosphere was awesome,” Maness said after the Warriors improved to 20-2 and 12-0 in the FVC, two games ahead of second-place South (20-4, 10-2). Each team has six conference games left. The Gators’ only two losses in FVC play are to McHenry, after they went undefeated in conference last season.

Maness, a 5-foot-10 guard, starts but takes few shots. He took none, in fact, Friday. McHenry’s free-throw ladder drill is a friendly competition among players that sometimes involves having to run to the half-court line or do a pushup before shooting a free throw.

“I love to compete against him,” Maness said of Jett.

Jett also shoots free throws well. He made 5 of 6 against South, and after he made 2 of 2 with 1:36 left in the third quarter to give McHenry a 35-32 lead, officials stopped the game so those in attendance could applaud the senior guard for scoring his 1,000th career point.

Jett said McHenry coach Corky Card didn’t tell him before the game the exact number of points he needed to reach the milestone.

“He didn’t want me to be too focused on hitting that, so he gave me a range,” said Jett, whose two throws were his 18th and 19th points of the game. “I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was surprised when I got it.”

Led by Carson Trivellini, South took the lead in the fourth. Trivellini’s three-point play in transition and a free throw by Nick Stosser had the Gators up 48-46 with 1:58 to go. But 20 seconds later, Hurckes sank a left-corner 3 that kissed the backboard to give the lead back to McHenry.

“The bank was open,” South coach Matt LePage said. “It was a great game, though. Both teams played incredibly hard. McHenry is flying around, they’re playing physical, and you have to answer that physicality. I thought we did at times, but it’s got to be consistent.”

Maness swished two free throws with 1:07 left, then duplicated the feat with 38.5 seconds to go, lengthening McHenry’s lead to 53-48.

“He’s a good free-throw shooter,” Jett said. “We knew he was going to hit them at the end.”

McHenry missed six free throws in the final 68 seconds but survived to capture its ninth win in a row, while stopping South’s nine-game winning streak.

Jett got up 19 shots on a night when both teams defended hard for all 32 minutes. He sank nine field goals, including three in seven tries from 3-point range. His 15 points (all three 3s) had McHenry ahead 27-23 at halftime.

He scored seven points (three field goals) in the fourth.

“Jett got loose, no doubt,” LePage said. “He got hot, and when he gets hot and he’s confident, they’re a load offensively. It was just a little disappointing that we lost him as much as we did, and he made us pay.”

“Most underrated player in the FVC,” McHenry leading scorer and rebounder Adam Anwar, who missed his seventh game in a row with a broken wrist, said of Jett.

Trivellini led the Gators with 17 points (four 3s), including nine in the fourth. AJ Demirov (three 3s) and Tony Santarelli added 16 and 15, respectively.

“It was crazy out there at times, but I’m proud of my guys, proud of my coaches,” Trivellini said. “I thought we played great.”