DePaul Prep overwhelms Joliet West in Pontiac quarterfinals

PONTIAC – Joliet West faced a monumental task in the quarterfinal round of the Pontiac Holiday Tournament as it challenged two-time state champion DePaul Prep.

And while the Tigers weren’t able to pull of a monumental upset in a 66-46 loss to the Rams, Joliet West coach Jeremy Kreiger said he genuinely believes that matchups like these are exactly what will help his team build for the future.

The loss dropped Joliet West into the fifth-place bracket, in which it will face New Trier at 11 a.m. Saturday morning. DePaul Prep, making its first appearance at the Pontiac Tournament, will play Curie in the semifinal round.

“We relish in this,” Kreiger said. “If you are feeling pressure that’s because you are supposed to, because that means you have an opportunity.

“DePaul Prep entering this tournament made the field that much stronger and it is already a very good field. So for me, yeah, as a competitor I hate losing by double digits, but it’s not about me, it’s about us and our growth and learning from that opportunity.”

The Tigers (10-3) looked a little shell-shocked out of the gates against the Rams. DePaul held just a 5-4 lead through the first two minutes, but then it ripped off 13 of the game’s next 17 points and left the first quarter with a 21-8 lead.

DePaul added the first five points of the second quarter to run the lead to 26-8 before Joliet West was finally able to stop the run with a 3-pointer from Luke Grevengoed.

“That wasn’t a jab. That was a right cross,” Kreiger said of DePaul’s early surge. “They tried to knock us out early.”

But after that initial flurry Kreiger’s troops started to soldier up against the test at hand. Grevengoed’s 3-pointer sparked an 8-0 run for the Tigers. DePaul pushed the lead back up but for the rest of the game, Joliet West didn’t let the Rams ability to put up points quickly completely envelop them as it did earlier in the game.

“For us we talk about certain things that we would like our players to possess that have nothing to do with talent,” Kreiger said. “And the biggest one that Coach Mines circled on our board for tonight was competitive spirit. We knew we were better competitors than we showed to start the game and that fact that we did continue to compete is something.”

In fact, Joliet West had multiple opportunities to get the lead back down to single digits late in the second quarter but wasn’t quite able to get over that barrier.

DePaul put any hopes Joliet West had of scrapping its way back into the game on ice by starting the second half by scoring seven of the first 10 points, but even then the Tigers responded with back-to-back 3-pointers from Ethan Hillsman and Aamir Shannon to keep things respectable.

Shannon led Joliet West with 15 points. DePaul Prep’s offensive balance showed itself by placing four players in double figures led by an 18-point performance from AJ Chambers.