Boys basketball: Rock Falls rallies, makes clutch plays down stretch in nail-biting MLK Classic win

STERLING – Defense and clutch shooting. That’s what saved Rock Falls at the end of its nail-biting 58-57 win over Thornton Fractional South at the Sterling MLK Classic on Monday at Musgrove Fieldhouse.

The Rockets (13-7) trailed the Red Wolves (7-11) 49-43 at the start of the fourth quarter, but rallied to their first lead in over 18 minutes behind a 10-0 run.

“It’s our second game of the day. We weren’t big on energy at the start, and once we got going, the energy came up,” Rock Falls junior guard Kuitim Heald said. “[In the second half] we just push up on defense, and like I said, the energy came up. It’s good basketball if you’re playing good D. Defense wins games.”

[ Photos: Rock Falls vs Thornton Fractional South  ]

Rock Falls junior guard Austin Castaneda got to the rim with 6:40 remaining, then hit a left-corner 3 less than a minute later before Heald buried a left-wing 3 for a 51-49 lead with 5:34 remaining. Castaneda got to the rim again on a nice crossover dribble from the left wing to push it to 53-49 with 4:31 left.

That 10-0 run swung the game back in the Rockets’ favor, but the Red Wolves weren’t done just yet.

T.F. South retook the lead with an 8-0 run over the next 3:31, getting layups from junior David Nkowgu and senior Cedric Tientcheu, as well as a short jumper from freshman Amari Dukes and a putback from senior Tyler Earmsmuth.

Down 57-53 with 1:30 to play, things looked grim for Rock Falls.

But they didn’t stay that way for long.

Heald nailed a deep right-wing 3 to cut it to 57-56 with 46 seconds left, and T.F. South threw the ball away into the backcourt with just over 25 seconds on the clock. After a drawing foul, Rock Falls senior guard Aydan Goff went to the free-throw line and nailed both foul shots to put his team up 58-57 with 24.3 seconds remaining.

“What was going through my head was, I gotta make these. I definitely gotta make these,” Goff said about the final free throws. “I felt amazing. After those went in, I was just like, ‘Oh, fresh breath, thank God.”

With one last chance to win it, the Red Wolves went up for a layup with about six seconds left, but Rock Falls senior forward Devin Tanton-DeJesus blocked the ball and a timeout was called after a T.F. South offensive rebound.

The Red Wolves inbounded after that and got one final contested shot up, but it banked off the side of the backboard as time expired.

“The early struggles, it was just the intensity. We lost the first game [76-69 to Christ the King], and that kind of got us down a little bit, and the intensity just wasn’t there at first,” Castaneda said. “Then Coach [Zach Sandrock] got on us, and our intensity flared up, and everybody was hyped, everybody looked like they really came to play.”

The Rockets opened the game with an 8-2 run through the first 1:29. Goff scored a fast-break layup in the first minute, and Heald followed with two 3-pointers to extend the six-point lead.

The Red Wolves took a 16-14 lead with 1:37 remaining in the first quarter on a right-wing 3 by junior Rashad Peeples. T.F. South expanded the 20-16 first-quarter lead to 33-27 at halftime.

The Red Wolves grabbed eight offensive rebounds and forced 10 Rocket turnovers to control the first half.

Castaneda hit a right-corner 3 off an inbounds pass from Heald to draw within 47-43 at the end of the third quarter.

Heald, who was named player of the game, paced the Rockets’ attack with 21 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals. Castaneda scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half, and Tanton-DeJesus and Goff supplied eight points each. Goff had three rebounds and three assists, and Tanton-DeJesus added two rebounds, two assists and two steals. Senior guard Gavin Sands chipped in seven points and four steals for Rock Falls.

Dukes led the Red Wolves with 19 points and 10 rebounds, Earmsmuth totaled 11 points, seven rebounds and two steals, and senior Sam Townsend added four points, four assists and five steals.