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Sports
Bouncing back : Sports : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisBouncing back
| After opening loss, Oswego defeats Metea Valley in Hoops for Healing play
| by Laura M. Medina
| 11/22/2012
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It's never too soon for a team to start demonstrating its resiliency, and the Oswego boys' basketball squad is proof of that, as it overcame a season-opening loss with a resounding 64-44 victory over Metea Valley in the second game of its Hoops for Healing Tournament at Oswego on Tuesday night.
Co-hosted by Naperville North, the tournament opened play on Monday night, when the Panthers (1-1) endured an 80-66 loss to Naperville Central. They were set to play 2011 Class 4A state runner-up Proviso East on Wednesday, but results were unavailable at press time.
Resiliency was definitely the name of the game for Oswego last season, when it rebounded from a relatively inconsistent start to win 10 of its last 12 games en route to reaching the Class 4A regional championship.
To bounce back from their defeat at the hands of the Redhawks, though, the Panthers needed to pull together to play in what Oswego head coach Kevin Schnable calls "the right way."
"We're very pleased with our guys' ability to bounce back," he said. "It's way too early in the season to push the panic button, but to turn it around within 24 hours, the credit goes to our kids for playing the right way. We played right, and it starts with defense.
"We held them to 44 points, and they shot 1-for-16 from the arc, and we did so with our on and off ball pressure; our bigs down low did an outstanding job. We want to play that pressure-defense, because we want to increase our number of possessions. We want to get the ball as often as we ca, because we have guys like (seniors Miles Simelton and Elliot McGaughy) who can put the ball where it belongs."
But neither Simelton nor McGaughy could get anything going for the Panthers until there was 3:40 left in the first, when Simelton's jumper made it a 7-2 game. About a minute later, Simelton then found himself making a name for himself in the school's history books, as he sank the back-end of a pair of free throws for his 1,000th career point.
"It was a really great accomplishment for me to have," said Simelton, who had a game-high 23 points and three steals on his big night. "Coach Schnable moved me up as a freshman so I've just been racking up points since then. I'm glad I got it here in front of my friends that I've been playing with since middle school."
From there, though, it was a team effort, as the Panthers continued to chip away at the deficit, eventually knotting the score at 9 apiece following McGaughy's free throws with 39.7 seconds remaining in the quarter.
Steadily, Oswego found itself taking the lead and expanding it 20-13 with about three minutes to go in the second. But Metea Valley wasn't ready to concede the game that early, as it seemingly traded baskets with the opposition down the stretch of the quarter to make the home side's lead just 26-23 heading into halftime.
"We definitely bounced back from that game (Tuesday), and I think that going forward, we're just going to have to rely on all the starters we have," Simelton said. "We're just trying to get our flow back, but we're getting there."
Oswego led 30-27 with about 5:30 remaining in the third, but a 10-2 run spurred by Simelton's eight points helped open things up a bit. That 11-point lead extended throughout the quarter, as the Panthers carried a 49-38 advantage with them into the fourth.
"I think we just came together as a team after we had a few momentum plays," Simelton said. "I think that's when we broke it open, and we were just able to keep the lead and get stops on defense."
Back-to-back layups by McGaughy, who contributed 16 points and five rebounds off the bench, started off the final period, seemingly boosted Oswego and carried the team to its subsequent victory. With outbursts like that, Panther fans could be in for a high-scoring season.
"We want this to be (a year where) we just get them to the gym and let them play ball; that's what this year should be about," Schnable said. "It's too early yet to allow that to happen, but I'm thrilled by the way that you guys played."
In all, the Panthers played 17 athletes, including seven young reserves, who helped hold off the Mustangs in the final minute of the contest.
"We had key contributions and meaningful minutes from a variety of guys coming off the bench, but we're still in that goal-defining phase where we as coaches will figure things out based on the way our guys played," Schnable said. "We had 18 field goals and 17 assists...and that means we're playing as a team and working together."
Among those many field goals were senior Darion Reddick's, as he chipped in eight points off the bench on Tuesday. Fellow fourth-year players Josh Oros (seven points) and Jack Kwiatkowski (six points, five rebounds, two steals) also contributed for the Panthers, who will see a variety of talented teams in both the remaining tournament bracket and throughout the 2013 slate.
"Coach Schnable says he tries to schedule the toughest games he can get, because he believes in us as a team, and I think that's really great of him as a coach," Simelton said. "We should build confidence not necessarily just because we're playing the best teams, but because we're able to get our team chemistry together. And it'll be good to play these great teams, because we'll see them at the end of the season, since I know a lot of them are in our sectional."
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