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MINOOKA - Minooka coach Brett Hespell likes to build his teams around defensive tenacity and grit.
And while sometimes it isn’t the prettiest to watch, opponents aren’t really big fans of the chosen style of the Indians either.
Minooka employed both of those strategies to a tee on Friday night as it grinded out a 46-41 Southwest Prairie Conference victory over Joliet West.
The win was Minooka’s fourth consecutive victory while the loss snapped a three-game winning streak for Joliet West.
“It was a great win,” Hespell said. “I think first semester we had two or three games that we should have won. And when you are trying to build a program, I think its easy for kids to lose their confidence before Christmas and we might have done that a little bit, but we got it going again and we played tough, hard and physical.”
Minooka (12-8, 5-4) showed that proclivity right from the start as it held Joliet West scoreless (13-6, 7-2) for the first four minutes of the game as it burst out to an 8-0 lead.
Joliet West, however, seemed to catch its bearings after digging the early hole. The Tigers proceed to close the first quarter on a 16-3 run and it looked as if things were back on track.
But Minooka hunkered down on defense and once again took the Tigers out of rhythm as Joliet West scored just six points in the second quarter. Minooka didn’t do much better, scoring just seven itself, but the 22-18 deficit at half seemed like a victory within itself.
“I think all of the guys in the locker room knew we had a chance to win the game coming into it and so I think that fed them a little bit,” Hespell said. “And it is just a really resilient group. When they make mistakes, they don’t put their heads down. They go and make the next play.”
With the tempo of the game exactly where Minooka wanted it, the Indians ratcheted up things once again as Joliet West went through another scoreless stretch to start the third quarter until Zion Gross (16 points) snapped the drought with just over four minutes to play in the third quarter.
In the interim, Minooka reclaimed the lead as the combo of Kevin Bisbee (13 points) and Brady Hairald (10 points) pushed Minooka back into its first lead since the fourth quarter. Others also chipped in to a scoring run that found Minooka ahead 31-26 at the end of three quarters.
“That’s what is unique about our team,” Hairald said. “Anybody can score at any moment.”
Based on the scoring tempo of the game, Jordan Freeman’s traditional 3-point play with six minutes left that gave Minooka a 36-28 lead seemed to put the game out of reach for Joliet West.
But the Tigers had one more push in them and an 8-0 scoring run capped by a basket by Ethan Hillsman suddenly knotted the game at 36 with just under three minutes to play.
However, as they had done all game, Hairald and Bisbee stepped up again with Bisbee connecting for a a clutch 3-pointer that re-established Minooka’s control at 41-36.
Gross tried to draw Joliet West back scoring on a traditional 3-point play with 53 seconds to play, but Minooka made just enough of its free throws down the stretch to cement the win and continue to get the Indians believing in what might be possible in the second half of the season.
“We’ve been taking practice a lot more seriously,” Hairald said. “We went on a little rough stretch and then we all decided as a team that we needed to pick it up in practice and take things more seriously. And our habits have become better.”