Warren’s full arsenal too much for Bolingbrook

LISLE – The second game of the When Sides Collide Shootout at Benet Academy on Saturday featured two of the state’s best sophomore players in Warren’s Jaxson Davis and Bolingbrook’s Davion Thompson.

Both were splendid in the contest with Davis leading all scorers with 22 points and Thompson pacing Bolingbrook with 20 points.

But the game’s outcome was decided largely by forces outside of the sensational sophomores as Warren’s supporting cast stepped up in an 82-71 victory.

It was a huge lift for the Blue Devils (15-6), who dropped three of their last seven games. Bolingbrook, now 21-3, had a 12-game winning streak snapped with the loss.

For Warren, the Blue Devils finally started to flourish with its full complement of players. During its its recent struggles both Jack Wolf and Javerion Banks missed multiple contests but both played substantial roles in Saturday’s win.

Wolf poured in 18 first-half points and prodded Warren into a four-point lead in an extremely up-tempo, well-played first half while Banks contributed substantially off the bench.

“Today, we just kind of tried to simplify just getting back to playing together and being happy for each other, like being happy for other guy’s success,” Warren coach Zack Ryan said. “We just kept it really simple today and we talked about getting back to our style of basketball.”

That style of basketball fostered getting everyone involved. Wolf led the charge early as Davis was limited to just three first-half field goals, then the Blue Devils really cranked things up in the second half getting huge step-up performances from Braylon Walker (20 points) and Zach Ausburn, who had all 10 of his points and was a neutralizer against Bolingbrook rebounding force JT Pettigrew.

“After the loss yesterday [to Lake Zurich] we all kind of brought it together and evaluated what we needed to do better moving forward,” Ausburn said. “We kind of decided that we needed to play more together and not care as much about who is getting the ball and whatnot.”

Davis took the reins in the fourth quarter, finishing with a flourish, knocking down a pair of long 3-pointers that allowed Warren to stretch a close game through three quarters into leads that grew as large as 16 points in the fourth quarter. It was a side of Warren that hadn’t been visible very often during its recent stretch.

“It was a little bit grounding for us,” Davis said. “Just coming back to practice every day working, knowing what we are capable of and I think today we showed what we are really capable of.”

Bolingbrook seemed capable of sparring with Warren shot for shot in the first half. The two teams combined for 15 made 3-pointers in the first half as the scoring pace seemed destined to send both teams close to the century mark.

But the Raiders cooled significantly in the second half, particularly from beyond the arc. Bolingbrook hit just three 3-pointers after the break, with all of them coming too late to cut much into Warren’s growing lead.

“You have to give them credit because they hit shots and they defended us very well,” Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost said. “And we’ve got some deficiencies that we have to work on as well. We’ll come back on Monday and practice and I still think we’re a really good team and the Raiders will be just fine.”

Pettigrew finished with 18 points for Bolingbrook, while Kendall Cutler also contributed 14 to the cause.