Lockport holds off Bradley-Bourbonnais for key SouthWest Suburban Conference win

BRADLEY – The Lockport and Bradley-Bourbonnais boys basketball teams played a thriller of a SouthWest Suburban Conference game on Friday with second place in the conference standings on the line.

Both teams were 5-2 in conference play coming into the game in which Lockport staved off a furious comeback attempt from the Boilermakers to get a 57-52 road win.

The Porters improved to 12-7 overall while Bradley-Bourbonnais fell to 12-6.

After three quarters of back-and-forth action, the Porters eventually led 52-42 with a little more than two minutes left. The Boilermakers then cut it to 52-50 with 45 seconds to go when senior center Nick Allen converted an and-one.

The Boilermakers started fouling after that, seeing if Lockport could ice the game from the free throw line.

Anthony Kosi knocked down two big free throws on the Porters’ ensuing possession, and after another Allen basket cut the score to 54-52, Trace Schaaf sank two more to get the lead back to four points with 13 seconds left.

Lockport held on from there to pick up a five-point win, the Porters' fifth victory in a row.

Lockport head coach David Wilson said the team came into Friday’s game knowing it would be a tough road test, and he loved how his team responded.

“We circled this game on the calendar at Bradley because you know that the crowd will be in it, it’s loud and it’s a great high school environment,” he said. “Sometimes it can get the best of you, and we were able to capitalize on a lead.”

Holding a late lead was also a key the Porters were focusing on heading into the game. With a tough opponent playing behind the energy of its home crowd, Wilson said it was vital to be in an advantageous position late in the game.

“The rule of thumb here is you need a nine-point lead with three minutes left,” he said. “We had something like that and we were able to hold on. So this was definitely very fulfilling.”

For Bradley-Bourbonnais, Friday’s loss was the second straight SWSC game where it came up just short in the late stages. The Boilermakers lost 56-52 to Lincoln-Way Central on Tuesday.

Bradley-Bourbonnais coach Ryan Kemp said he was pleased with how the team fought in the fourth quarter to bounce back from a double-digit deficit, but also felt that some missed opportunities earlier in the game played as big a factor in the loss as the events in the final minutes.

“We had a great effort down 10 with like 2:15 left and did a lot of great, aggressive things to get back into the game,” he said. “It was a very exciting finish, and ultimately everything is kind of magnified at the end. But I think the third quarter probably was the biggest. We lost to them by four in the third quarter.”

That third quarter was where Lockport senior Collin Miller was the most productive. He scored a game-high 27 points. Ten of those points came in the third, as did two of his six 3-pointers.

Miller said the win was a bit of a breakthrough for the Porters, who he thinks have struggled against high-caliber opponents this season.

“It feels great,” he said. “This is our first big win, in my opinion, since we’ve been struggling against good teams. At the end of the game, just finishing out strong, it feels good to finally end on top against a good team.”

Another big performance came from Allen for the Boilermakers. The 6-foot-11 Illinois State commit was held off the scoreboard for much of the fourth quarter before scoring seven points in the team’s late comeback push. He finished with a team-high 22 points.

Although Allen was still productive, Wilson said he was happy with how the Porters’ relatively undersized defense made things difficult for him.

“Either you worry about four guys and Nick Allen goes off, or try to take away Nick Allen and make the other four guys best you,” Wilson said. “I’ve seen Nick Allen since he was a freshman, so I didn’t want to come in here and let him have his way.

“We had a certain game plan, and for the most part we executed it very well. At the end of the day, we didn’t want to give easy buckets to a Division I center.”

The Boilermakers gave Allen some support offensively with Gavin Kohl knocking down three 3-pointers in the first. He had just two points in the second half, though, as Bradley-Bourbonnais was unable to consistently knock down shots.

Lockport will head home to host Lincoln-Way Central on Tuesday.

The Porters lost the previous matchup 53-46 on Dec. 10, and Wilson said the team will be looking to avoid a similar result coming off of Friday’s win.

“We just want to build on this momentum,” he said. “Sometimes when you have a younger team get a big win like this, you have a letdown the following game. We have to keep that from happening. It’s cliche, but we have to take one game at a time. We have Lincoln-Way Central on Tuesday and that’s all we’re going to think about for three days.”