Boys basketball: Rock Falls rallies multiple times to win 2A regional title

BYRON – As the Rock Falls players lined up to take a team photo with the regional plaque, head coach Zach Sandrock walked past and hung the net around Aydan Goff’s shoulders, eliciting a small cheer from his teammates.

Goff was just one of several Rockets who made key plays in clutch situations Saturday night, as Rock Falls rallied from deficits in each of the final three quarters to pull out a 43-40 victory over the host Tigers in the Class 2A Byron Regional championship game.

[ Photos from Rock Falls vs. Byron boys basketball 2A regional final ]

“Different guys stepped up at different times, and it was just a really good team win,” said Goff, who hit back-to-back pull-up jumpers midway through the fourth quarter to put the Rockets in front. “We knew guys would step up when they needed to. They might have been scoreless in the first half, but once they got to the fourth quarter, they realized that not one person was going to do it all.

“It’s a collaborative thing, and we all came in and worked together. I’m so happy and proud of us.”

It’s the 27th regional or district title for Rock Falls, and the first since 2019. The Rockets advance to the 2A Orion Sectional semifinals, facing Rockridge at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

It also avenged a loss to Byron earlier in the season at Tabor Gym, when the Tigers got hot from the perimeter and Rock Falls struggled to get anything going in a 26-point loss.

“This means everything. It’s so awesome,” senior Chevy Bates said, grinning ear-to-ear. “Now we’re on to sectionals, baby! I’m just so happy, man! I love it!”

Bates made a couple of key baskets in the second and third quarters, and also had a huge hustle play down the stretch.

With Rock Falls (16-17) leading 41-38 in the final minute, Byron (20-10) knocked the ball away and looked poised to take the ball the other way in a one-possession game. But Bates somehow came up with the loose ball in the ensuing scramble, and he found Ryken Howard wide open at the elbow. Howard drove to the hoop for an easy layup and a 43-38 lead with 23 seconds left.

“The hustle plays were so big, especially after the first half when they beat us on the boards,” said Bates, who finished with eight points and a game-high 10 rebounds. “That second half, we were hungry. We wanted to get those rebounds, and we wanted this win so bad, you have no idea.”

Rebounding played a key role in the game. Byron scored nine-second chance points on 12 offensive rebounds in the first half and took a 20-17 lead into the locker room. But the Rockets shored things up in the second half, as they only allowed two offensive rebounds to the Tigers.

Rock Falls also took care of the ball better in the second half, committing just five turnovers after having 10 in the first half. The Rockets also forced seven of Byron’s 12 turnovers after the break, and turned those into six points.

“I’d say defense, getting stops was our main priority. When we got stops, it slowed them down and made our intensity go up,” said Goff, who had 10 points, two rebounds and two assists. “It helped us transition from defense to offense, and it showed up really big for us tonight.”

“It was all effort and energy,” Bates added. “We were able to box out as a team, get rebounds, play defense, and talk. Communication is everything, and that’s what helped pull us through.”

A Howard 3-pointer gave Rock Falls a 10-7 lead late in the first quarter, but Byron answered with a 9-3 run that included a 3 by Jack Hiveley and a putback by Nick Kesler to take a 18-13 lead with 1:24 left before halftime.

Bates cut the margin to two with a three-point play on a putback off his own miss, and the Rockets trailed 20-17 at the break. He came through again midway through the third quarter, nailing a 3-pointer on a cross-court kick-out pass from Goff with 4:01 to go in the period after Byron had pushed its lead to 29-21 on another Hiveley 3-pointer.

A minute later, Diego Hernandez stole the ball at mid-court and drove in for a layup and a foul, converting the three-point play. Two minutes after that, Howard tied the game 30-30 with a 3 on an inbounds play; he took the pass from Goff in a gap in the Byron zone on the right wing, pump-faked twice, then buried the shot when neither Byron defender got a hand in his face.

“We just executed our offense really well. We worked on it [Friday], put in a bunch of new plays, and we ran them and they worked. We got open shots and hit them,” said Howard, who led Rock Falls with 13 points. “I think we just came out with a lot of energy in the fourth quarter, and it got us hyped. We hit a couple of big shots to turn the game around, and we just had a lot of momentum and we kept going.”

After Howard went coast-to-coast for a layup off a steal to open the fourth quarter,Cason Newton banked in a 3 from the top of the key and Hiveley scored in the lane to put Byron back in front 35-32. But Goff responded with his pull-up jumpers, then after a three-point play by Carson Buser gave the Tigers a 38-36 lead, Goff found Gavin Sands open in the left corner for a 3 and a 39-38 lead with 1:36 to play.

“We let them loose a couple of times, and they hit a couple of 3s that were big, and took advantage of a couple of scramble plays,” Byron coach Matt Huels said. “We’d work so hard to get to a five- or six-point lead, and they’d bang-bang us real quick and the lead went from six to zero in a hurry.”

Sands then hit both ends of a 1-and-1 before Howard’s layup off the Bates loose-ball recovery. Buser hit two free throws with 15.9 seconds remaining, then Byron had one last chance when Howard missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 10 seconds left.

But Rock Falls trapped a Tiger in the corner to force a final Byron timeout with four seconds left, then forced a last-second desperation shot from Newton deep behind the 3-point arc that was off-line.

“Just playing the way we play was key for us, because when we do that, we play phenomenal as a team,” Goff said. “It’s just outstanding how we play together, on both ends of the court. Our defense is good, our offense is smooth, and our intensity is there, our energy is there. It’s just all-around amazing.”

Sands had eight points and four rebounds, and Kuitim Heald added four rebounds and two assists for the Rockets.

Hiveley led Byron with 10 points, and Newton added eight points, four steals and three rebounds. Kesler had seven points, five rebounds and two assists, and Buser and Caden Considine both finished with five points and two assists; Considine also snared five rebounds. Kye Aken hit a first-quarter 3, and Braylon Kilduff chipped in two points and a team-high nine rebounds for the Tigers, who were without one of their top players in Ryan Tucker, who injured his elbow late in Thursday’s semifinal win.

“The group that we had tonight was a group that was put together in 24 hours, and I thought they executed our 1-3-1 offense pretty well, to where we got them out of it at times. They went to man-to-man, and when we got there, we were getting the shots, and we just didn’t make them,” Huels said. “Credit to Rock Falls, they just hit a couple more shots than we did.”