Romeoville uses ‘unselfish’ effort in dominant win over Plainfield East

ROMEOVILLE – It’s no secret at this point that Damion Porter Jr. is a fantastic basketball player. He has a Division I offer from Tarleton State for a reason, after all. It’s not uncommon to see him dominate the stat sheet for Romeoville on any given night.

The way things unfolded for the Spartans on Monday in their Southwest Prairie Conference East game against Plainfield East, however, should have other teams very scared, for it showed they don’t need Porter to be dominant to dominate.

Nine players scored for the Spartans on Monday with three reaching double figures. Danny Thompson led the way with 16 as Romeoville led the Bengals by 20 points most of the way in a 67-46 victory.

Romeoville (3-3, 3-1 SPC East) has played a brutal schedule in the early going of the season, which led to the Spartans dropping their first three games. They’ve been on a tear lately, however, knocking off Joliet West and Joliet Central entering Monday night before earning their third straight victory. While Porter finished in double figures as usual with 10, it was Thompson and Adrian Ivey (14 points) who led the scoring effort.

Jamarri Fears (eight points), Jacob Milock (six points) and Daylyn Porter (seven rebounds) had big nights for the Spartans, as well.

“I thought we played a very unselfish brand of basketball today,” Romeoville coach Marc Howard said. “We shared the ball very well and knocked down some shots early to give us some space. Defensively we were aggressive, got some 50-50 balls and created some turnovers while rebounding well in the first half.”

There wasn’t much fault in the Spartans’ game in the first half as they jumped out to a 7-0 lead, holding the Bengals scoreless for the first three minutes. Romeoville’s first 14 points were scored by six players as they built a 14-3 edge.

The Bengals managed a few more buckets before the quarter was over with Kobe Jordan’s layup cutting the deficit to 19-8 with 33 seconds left. However, Thompson’s buzzer-beating 3 made it 22-8 Spartans entering the second.

Ivey kept the offense flowing in the second period with an early 3-pointer, and the lead only grew from there. Thompson made it a 21-point game midway through the second quarter with a triple that put the Spartans up 35-14. A 3-pointer by KJ Miller cut it back to 19 with 3:04 left until halftime, but Ivey’s layup with 1:38 to go made it 20 points again. The Spartans led 45-23 entering the break.

The Bengals scored the first two baskets of the third quarter, and Howard called a timeout to get the Spartans reorganized.

“I thought we had to call that timeout just to refocus,” Howard said. “[Plainfield East] came out very aggressive. Credit to them for fighting hard to get back into the game, but after we called the timeout I thought we settled the guys down and got them locked back in.”

Lock in they did, as Porter Jr. got going on offense with back-to-back contested baskets to make the score 50-27. Plainfield East was far more competitive in the quarter, being outscored just 14-13, but that still left it trailing 59-36 heading into the final eight minutes.

The fourth quarter saw no change to the flow of the game. A Miller 3-pointer cut the deficit to 19 at one point, but another 3 by Thompson stretched the lead back to 22 and the Spartans remained firmly in front the rest of the way.

“We’re working on putting wins up on the board,” Thompson said. “We started off with a hard schedule, so we lost to out-of-state teams. When we get [back home] we have to make it known that we’re one of the best teams in the state. We came out with a different type of fire because we needed to win and put ourselves on the map.”

Plainfield East (4-5, 2-3) will play Bolingbrook on Friday on the road, while Romeoville will host Minooka the same night.