Sophomore KJ Miller leads Plainfield East past Plainfield North in OT

PLAINFIELD — A sophomore in academic standing, Plainfield East’s KJ Miller performed like a seasoned veteran Tuesday night in a 61-53 overtime win over District 202 and Southwest Prairie Conference rival Plainfield North in the annual Battle for 119th St.

After Plainfield North rallied from an 11-point deficit in the third quarter to force overtime, Miller got the Bengals off to a rousing start in the extra session. He found himself open in the right corner and, right in front of a loud and proud East student section, hit nothing but net on a 3-pointer for a 56-53 Bengal lead with 1:25 to play. With 1:00 left, he tipped in a missed shot for a 58-53 lead.

The Bengals' defense, which had been stingy all night, remained so in overtime, not allowing North (9-8, 4-4) to score in the final 4:00. Besides leading the team with 23 points, Miller also finished with a game-high 12 rebounds.

“This is a big win for us,” Miller said. “I wasn’t nervous taking that 3-pointer. We were just out there playing ball. When we play Plainfield North, we have a chip on our shoulder, especially on our home court.

“We had a good game plan, and we executed it well and stuck to it. Everyone chipped in tonight and it was a great team win.”

Senior Kobe Jordan added 14 points for East, while junior Leslie Pobee had 10 points and nine rebounds.

The Bengals never trailed in the game and led 14-12 at the end of the first quarter, 23-20 at halftime and 42-36 at the end of the third. Midway through the third, East held a 35-24 lead before North began to rally.

Pierre Pointer, who led the Tigers with 23 points, scored six of those points through the rest of the third quarter to help narrow the margin. A 3-pointer by Quintin Wiencek (12 points) and a basket by Pointer off an assist from Darin Ashiru got North to within 42-41. Pobee and North’s Lukas Alvarez traded baskets before East got a putback bucket by Nana Atakora-Yanzu and a basket by Jordan made it 48-43. Wiencek sandwiched a pair of 3-pointers around a putback by Pobee to pull the Tigers to within 50-49 with 1:12 to play.

Jordan scored on a drive for East before Ashiru (eight points) scored on a putback to cut it to 52-51. With 20.7 seconds left, East’s Justin Pazkowski made 1-of-2 free throws. Pointer scored on a drive with 7.5 seconds left to tie it and send it into overtime.

“We have a young team and we have been trying to build something,” East coach Kanwer Sarkaria said. “These guys are learning to play on the varsity level, and we were in the middle of a rough stretch of games. To see a sophomore like KJ Miller play like he did and to get senior leadership from guys like Kobe Jordan and Josh Stone, it was great.

“We were stressing defense for this game. At halftime, we had hit all three of our halftime goals. Those were to hold them under 25 and to keep 34 [Wiencek] and 22 [Sam Finn] below 14. The guys worked very hard in practice since Christmas break and I am so proud of the way they played tonight. Hopefully we can use this as a springboard for the rest of the season. The season is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. In fact, our motto this year is ‘TMC: The Marathon Continues.’”