Boys basketball: Jeremiah Fears delivers complete game for Joliet West

JOLIET – Moments after Joliet West captured the regional title on its home floor, sophomore standout Jeremiah Fears posed with his team surrounded by a boisterous student section as he almost tried to hide his face with the newly acquired championship plaque.

There was, however, no hiding his game from anyone even remotely paying attention to Friday night’s events the ended with a 71-57 victory over Romeoville which gave the Tigers the Class 4A Joliet West Regional crown.

The win lifts Joliet West (27-5) into next week’s Bolingbrook Sectional where it will face Lincoln-Way East at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Lincoln-Way East advanced to the sectional with a 50-48 win over Neuqua Valley at the East Aurora Sectional.

Jeremiah Fears has always demonstrated a flair for the dramatic with the Tigers but tends to sometimes leave more of the heavy lifting to his older brother, Jeremy Fears Jr.

But right from the drop, Jeremiah Fears demonstrated he was more than ready to shoulder a heavier portion of the load. He led the Tigers with 24 points and snagged 11 rebounds, but perhaps an overlooked and underappreciated element of his game was an absolutely electric defensive performance.

Jeremiah Fears essentially assigned himself the responsibility of slowing down Romeoville’s high-scoring guard Troy Cicero Jr., a Loyola (Maryland) recruit, and did so with such furious abandon that you couldn’t find but a few scant moments where Cicero didn’t find Jeremiah Fears directly in his face.

The net result was Cicero being held to two first-half points as Romeoville (22-11) struggled to find any offensive rhythm and went into the halftime break staring at a 35-20 deficit.

“I just told coach before the game that I wanted to guard him and that I wanted that challenge,” Jeremiah Fears said. “I knew when that it was my time and coach was like, ‘Go get him. You asked for it.’ So I went out and did it.”

It wasn’t the initial plan.

“Before the game we actually had Justice on Troy and had him on Meyoh (Swansey) but he looked me in the face and said coach, “I got Troy tonight.” From, a sophomore, which is huge.”

Even with Romeoville being held in check it still wasn’t a robust performance from the Tigers until late in the first half. A highly physical first half led to over 20 first-half fouls and neither team being able to find a rhythm.

But the Tigers would score 13 of the last 15 points of the first half to seize control of the scoreboard and its stranglehold on the defensive end ensured that they kept it.

“We were so clunky offensively tonight, we couldn’t run a balanced offense. We took some ill advised shots, we allowed them to get out in transition,” Kreiger said. “But what we take into hopefully Tuesday regardless of the opponent is the willingness to when you get up 20, keep it at 20, by valuing the ball longer and running longer possessions, forcing them to guard.”

Behind Jeremiah Fears game-high 24-point effort, Joliet West placed four players in double figures with Jeremy Fears dropping in 16, Matthew Moore providing 13 points including five thunderous dunks and Justus McNair finishing with 11.

Cicero ended up leading Romeoville with 12 points. Swansey, Aaron Brown and Kaharie Logan all had 11 each.