GRANITE CITY – Back on Dec. 29, Collinsville’s Tommy Maden came up with the biggest play of the game, hitting a three-point buzzer-beater to hand Southwestern Conference rival Granite City a heartbreaking loss in the Prairie Farms Collinsville Holiday Tournament.
Fast-forward a week, this time to Granite City’s Memorial Gym in a SWC clash between the two traditional rivals.
Same scenario, almost the same situation. Only this time, it was Granite City’s Kenny Berry who came up big, hitting a putback to a missed three-point try from the Warriors’ Jake Roustio with 3.3 seconds left to give Granite City a come-from-behind, 48-46 win over the Kahoks.
“Our defense stepped up,” Berry said. “That’s the key to us winning. That’s what’s going to get us past any team in the conference.”
On his game-winner, Berry – who wound up with a game-high 27 points – said “I’ve seen a lot of game-winning shots, and it’s always someone who follows up…I just happened to follow the shot.”
It certainly wasn’t the Warriors’ best-played game, coach Steve Roustio felt, but Granite came alive at just the right time. “Some things I can’t explain,” Roustio said. “Just trying to beg people to forget about the last play, just keep thinking about what they need to do next, you know, that next-ball mentality, because when things are going bad, if you’re not able to get things done, you can’t think about what just happened because you can’t change it anyway.
“I think that was going on in a couple of our players’ minds – I wouldn’t say a lot of them, but about two or three of them, especially early, but they snapped out of it and that’s huge. Had they not snapped out of it, we don’t win.”
A huge loss for the Kahoks came when they lost Zach Flora down the stretch after he fouled out with about 2:30 to go. “When Zach Flora fouled out, that took us away from a lot of things,” said Kahok coach Darin Lee. “Guarding Tra Allen, that was a killer for us.
“We had it won; we gave it away with missed layups and missed free throws. We could have put them away early; that’s disappointing. I thought we were the better team for three-and-a-half quarters and we certainly could have put the game away, but we didn’t.”
The Kahoks held the lead most of the way, holding a 42-35 lead about halfway through the final term, but Collinsville missed four crucial free throws in a row in a stretch of 31 seconds and the Warriors continued to chip away at the lead, finally forging a tie at 46-46 with 1:21 left when Allen connected inside. The Kahoks missed a chance to regain the lead on the next trip down, and the Warriors recovered the ball and went downcourt before calling their last time out with 60 seconds left.
Roustio elected to play for one final shot and set things up for Jake Roustio to try a three-pointer. It rolled in and out of the rim, but Berry got the rebound and calmly tossed up a floater that hit nothing but net with 3.3 seconds left, sending the Granite fans into a frenzy.
The clock ran out, but the referees and timer restored three seconds to the clock and the Kahoks inbounded. They got the ball to Ronnie Midgett, but Midgett, surrounded by a pair of defenders, couldn’t get a shot off, giving the Warriors the win.
Allen ended up with 11 points for Granite (8-5 overall, 3-2 SWC), with Roustio scoring five. The Kahoks (5-7 overall, 1-4 SWC) were led by Jake Hall’s 13 points, with Sam Webb getting 10 and Midgett nine.
Collinsville’s JV had no trouble with Granite City as the Kahoks won the curtain-raiser 69-34.
Next up for the Warriors is a trip to East St. Louis – who lost a 14-point lead and was defeated by Edwardsville at home Tuesday – for a Friday night contest.
