Manteno’s Ray Lee breaks school scoring record in wild win

MANTENO − Manteno senior Ray Lee came into Tuesday’s game against Peotone needing 15 points to break the program’s scoring record. The Panthers entered the fourth quarter of the game needing 15 points to retake the lead over their Illinois Central Eight Conference rival Blue Devils.

With Lee still seven points shy of setting the record entering the fourth, it looked like neither the record nor the win was in the cards.

But despite trailing 50-36 heading into the final frame, Manteno stormed back to pull off a dramatic comeback and win 62-58. And after tying the program record with a 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter, Lee hit a pair of free-throws with 14.1 seconds left to put Manteno up 61-58 and give him a new school record 1,180 points and counting.

Manteno improved to 18-11 overall and 9-3 in the ICE with the win while Peotone dropped to 12-13 overall and 5-7 in conference.

After the game, with the scoring record now in the rearview mirror, the main thing Lee felt was relief.

“It was a little nerve wracking,” he said. “I felt like I was under a lot of pressure, but now that it’s over I feel like I can get some of that pressure off and get back to how I was playing the rest of the year.”

The 3-pointer Lee hit to tie the record in the fourth quarter was the first such shot the Panthers had made all night. They would hit a total of four 3-pointers in the fourth, including one from Andrew Norred that cut Peotone’s lead to 56-53 and start a 9-0 run that gave Manteno the lead.

“We were open a majority of the game but they just weren’t falling,” Lee said. “We knew they were eventually going to fall and we just had to trust our teammates.”

Soon after Norred’s shot cut the Peotone lead to 56-53, Cooper Monk cut it to 56-55. Campbell then converted a huge and-one to put the Panthers up 58-56.

Manteno did just enough after that to get the win, getting some key defensive stops and going 5-of-7 from the free-throw line down the stretch, including Campbell’s make to finish off the three-point play and Lee’s record-breaking pair of shots.

After coming up short in their previous game against Streator, Manteno head coach Zack Myers said it was nice to see the team finish the game strong.

“It was exciting to be a part of, and the kids showed a lot of grit coming back,” he said. “We went to man on them and were able to get some stops, which was nice. And then we started hitting some shots in the fourth quarter.”

In turn, the shots stopped falling for Peotone late in the game. The Blue Devils got 23 points apiece out of Ruben Velasco and Brandon Weiss, but the pair combined for just six points in the fourth quarter.

“We did not finish it off,” Peotone head coach Ron Oloffson said. “We stopped playing defense and rebounding, we stopped taking good shots and we turned the ball over too much... We just didn’t get back to what got us there.”

Lee’s 16 points led Manteno, while Campbell finished with 15. Both players scored seven points in the fourth quarter. Norred had 10 points in the game and Cooper Monk had nine.

While the Panthers celebrated the win, Lee commemorated his record-breaking performance with Scott Wenzel, who had held the record of 1,178 points since 1987.

“That record has stood for too long I feel like, in this day and age, and I was happy to see him do it,” Wenzel said. “What I’m happy for the most is that they won tonight and he can put this behind him now and go play basketball... I think he’ll go do some great things to end the season here.”

Lee said it meant a lot to have Wenzel on hand to pass the torch.

“It was awesome,” he said. “I’ve been chasing it for a while and it was super joyful to have it. He was super happy for me and I just felt the love.”