Ryan Wisniewski, Richmond-Burton surprise Woodstock

RICHMOND – Unsung Richmond-Burton senior Ryan Wisniewski belted out a primal yell after he surprised many people in the gym by hitting an 18-footer to beat the halftime buzzer.

He yelled enthusiastically again after burying a left-corner 3-pointer during a momentum-changing run for the Rockets midway through the third quarter.

But nothing made Wisniewski smile more than when junior Luke Robinson made a revelation – all in fun, mind you – regarding his trusty teammate and fellow forward after the Rockets beat Woodstock 57-48 on Wednesday night in a game that put another wrench in the Kishwaukee River Conference race.

“Whenever we’re at the end of a quarter,” Robinson said, “we’re not looking to go to Ryan.”

Wisniewski interrupted Robinson with a primal laugh.

“But if it ends up in his hands,” Robinson continued, “we’re confident in him to go get a bucket. We’ve seen him hit shots. He shoots them every practice, all during practice, so we know he can make it. When it goes in, we’re all happy.”

Richmond-Burton, happily, finds itself in the whacky KRC. Robinson scored a game-high 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds, and sophomore point guard Gavin Radmer added 19 points, including three 3-pointers, as the Rockets won their third game in a row.

Woodstock (16-10, 7-3) entered the game alone in first place in the conference. Sandwich (7-2), which plays at Harvard on Thursday after Wednesday’s game was postponed because of the potential for freezing rain, defending champ Johnsburg (7-3), Plano (7-3) and R-B (16-7, 6-4) are all in the race.

“We put ourselves in a good spot coming into tonight and couldn’t get the job done,” Woodstock coach Ryan Starnes said.

There are four KRC games left for each team.

“Everybody’s taking turns beating each other,” said R-B coach Rich Petska, whose Rockets visit Sandwich on Saturday. “We got some work to do over the next few games here. We’re just taking them one at a time moving forward.”

“We just got to keep doing what we’re doing,” Wisniewski said.

What Wisniewski and his teammates did against Woodstock was tighten up defensively after Collin Greenlee opened the game for the Blue Streaks by draining back-to-back 3-pointers against the Rockets' zone off passes from Max Beard (12 points, 10 rebounds, four assists).

Greenlee, who was seeking his fifth straight game of 20 or more points, finished with nine points, as did Joey Nitz, who also had six assists. Freshman forward Liam Laidig had 10 points for the Streaks.

“After Collin made those first couple, they schemed to take him away,” Starnes said. “We talked about it in the locker room how we got to have other guys step up, especially against the zone, and tonight we struggled with that.”

Wisniewski takes few shots on a R-B team that gets most of its scoring from Robinson and Radmer, but his contributions do not go unnoticed by his coach.

“He’s the ultimate team kid,” Petska said. “We’re going to miss him when he graduates.”

Wisniewski gathered a pass from Radmer as time wound down in the first half and knocked down a shot from just inside the arc to put R-B up 26-25.

Then during a 75-second stretch in the third, the Rockets got consecutive 3-pointers from Jace Nelson (nine points, five rebounds), Robinson and Wisniewski. Just like that, R-B led 35-27 and never relinquished the lead, despite Woodstock getting within two points in the fourth.

Wisniewski also went 2 of 2 from the stripe and finished with seven points. Robinson was 6 of 8 from the line in the fourth to help stave off the Streaks. Dane Gardner and Radmer each made 2 of 2 free throws down the stretch, as R-B completed a sweep of the season series.

Wisniewski shrugged when asked about his big shots.

“We just work as a team, and I think that’s big,” he said. “Basketball is a game of runs, and we played real well tonight. Our defense was really good.”