Chicago Crane Reign over Plainfield Central 51-35 in Championship Game
Bobby Leach, SW Sports Nest
Published 01/04/2012
- 2:16 a.m. CST
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After opening the season with a 2-7 record and looking for his team to form their identity minus now Boise State standout Derrick Marks and former Wildcat great, there are definite signs that Central is beginning to figure how to win and proved that when they advanced to the championship game against Crane last week at the 1st annual Romeoville Christmas Classic.
Plainfield advanced after beating Romeoville in the large school championship game behind a masterful 26 point performance from senior guard Zach Warner who drained a school record eight, three-pointers and a pair of free throws that bounced the Spartans 57-53, the Wildcats faced a very tough and ranked Chicago Crane squad coached by certain future hall of fame coach Chris Head who has already led two former teams to a state title.
The Cougars offense was tough to stop especially in the paint where the Wildcats were outrebounded in the opening half 15-3. Complicating those rebounding efforts was the fact that Central's starting center Andre Norris picked up his third foul early in the second forcing him to go to the bench and opening the flood gates for the Cougars who jumped on top 26 - 12 at the break.
Crane sat in a 2-3 zone defense and did a good job getting out on the perimeter shooting of Central forcing deeper attempts from three point specialist Warner who finished the game with a respectable team leading 13 points and 3 boards. Despite sitting for much of the game in foul trouble, Norris finished with 10 points and 9 boards. Both Norris and Warner were named to the all-tournament team along with fellow SPC player, Romoeville's new senior transfer Uchenna Akuba.
The Cougars were led by Issaiah Hayes with a game high 16 points and senior standout guard Willie Conner's 14. Conner and teammate Hayes both were named to the all tournament team as well after beating the Wildcats handily 51-35.
"I thought we made some mistakes early and of course we would have loked to have Andre on the floor out of foul trouble but that's not why we lost the game. We have 15 guys on the team for a reason" said Central coach Steve Lamberti "Defensively we did fine but offensively we would have liked to do some different things but give the credit to Crane they are an excellent defensive team and they are going to make some noise this year."
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