Plainfield North dominates Plainfield South from start to finish for second consecutive win

PLAINFIELD – It’s been the definition of a back-and-forth season for the Plainfield North boys basketball team. After starting the year 5-2, the Tigers went 2-5 their next games to hit 7-7 entering Friday night’s home contest with Plainfield South.

If Friday was any indication, the script has been flipped once again.

The offense scored 66 points through three quarters, the defense held the Cougars without a double-digit scorer and Plainfield North won its second consecutive game, this one 67-38.

Plainfield North (8-7, 4-3) came into the matchup hovering around the middle of the pack in the SouthWest Prairie Conference and were seeking a boost to get back to their early season success. They got that and then some as Quintin Wiencek popped off for 20 points while Pierre Pointer and Lukas Alvarez each scored 15.

“We were prepared,” Wiencek said. “We spent two or three days practicing plays and knowing what (Plainfield South) wanted to do and we executed to win the game by a good amount.”

The Tigers hit 12 three-point shots as a team, which was business as usual for them. Even in their losses, making shots from deep hasn’t been a problem.

It wasn’t a problem on Friday either. The first thing the Tigers did was hit a three-pointer as Wiencek got things started. It was midway through the first before Plainfield South finally got points on the board and they still found themselves down 9-2. The Tigers scored nine more unanswered points and Pointer hit a buzzer-beating three to end the first quarter with a 26-6 lead.

Neither team scored the first two-and-a-half minutes of the second until Samuel Finn hit a trey, but that triggered an avalanche of offense. Pointer hit another buzzer-beater before the half, this one a layup as Plainfield North led 46-11 entering the locker room.

Credit Plainfield South for not quitting. Brilan Townsend hit a 3-pointer to open the second half and the Cougars put up 10 in the third, but the Tigers didn’t slow down as they put another 20 points up in the period as well.

The clock began to run from there and with the deep end of the bench in the game the Tigers gave up 14 in the final period and only scored one, but the job had already been taken care of.

Still, Tiger coach Robert Krahulik would like to see a better performance from his team down the stretch moving forward.

“I’d like to see better defense,” Krahulik said. “I’d like to see better handling of the ball...It’s a shame because they worked too hard in practice for that to be the case in the fourth quarter.”

As for the Cougars (11-6, 4-3), it was a night they’ll want to forget as they never seemed to get going. Kareem Parker led the way in scoring and even he only managed eight points of offense. The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for Plainfield South and left coach Jeff Howard speechless after the game as he declined to speak with the Herald-News.

While the Cougars will next face Yorkville on Tuesday, Plainfield North will be back in action Saturday night at home against Hinsdale South. Krahulik wasn’t worried about the overall win-loss record at the moment as he pointed out, likely to the cheers from Nick Saban and Kirk Herbstreit, that the Tigers strength of schedule has been a factor in those numbers.

“We feel we’re one of the better teams in the conference,” he said. “The only three teams we’ve lost to (in conference) are Bolingbrook, Joliet West and Oswego East which are probably the top three teams. If we can keep shooting like we have and play defense the way that we’re capable of we’ll do well in conference.”