Jacsen Tucker leads Oswego East past Plainfield South and into Class 4A regional championship game

OSWEGO – Jacsen Tucker is still getting used to playing varsity basketball.

The Oswego East sophomore certainly chose a great time to have a breakout game, coming off the bench to score 12 points and collect eight rebounds as the Wolves held off a familiar foe in Plainfield South 42-36 during Wednesday’s Class 4A Oswego East Regional semifinals.

Oswego East (21-9) will face Benet in Friday’s regional title game.

“The win means a lot,” Tucker said. “Coach V (Ryan Velasquez) and Coach Mo (Patrick Molinari) really trusted me, and not just me but also (sophomore) Dshaun (Bolden). To bring us up and have other guys also trust us and put us on the court and run us through plays and let us know what we’re doing and stuff like that feels good.”

Plainfield South (19-10) was looking to join the 2010-2011 team as the second in program history to win 20 games.

Both teams especially struggled to put the ball in the basket early.

The Cougars relied heavily on 3-pointers, getting a pair from JJ Huerta and one apiece from Corey Nobles and Glenn Harper, to lead 17-14 at halftime.

“We got to be defensive-minded,” Velasquez said. “I don’t mind the score being 5-3 after one quarter. We got to get stops and then got to take care of the ball better on the offensive end. But it’s always the next play mentality. I’ve been saying that the past couple weeks. We can’t dwell. With playoff basketball, you got to tighten it up a little bit, take care of it, but it’s next possession mentality too. And Plainfield South played hard. Coach (Jeff) Howard did a great job with his kids.”

Huerta’s floater in the lane with 4:46 remaining in the third quarter increased Plainfield South’s lead to 24-18.

The Wolves answered by scoring the game’s next 12 points. Tucker scored the first four during the run.

“He’s really athletic,” Velasquez said. “He’s a fierce competitor and we’ve known that. The sophomore coaches did a great job with him this season and he grew from the beginning of the season to the end with those guys. They went 26-1.”

The Wolves took their biggest lead at 34-26 with 5:38 still to play after a nice drive from Andrew Pohlman.

Glenn Harper’s three-point play with 1:26 left got the Cougars to within 40-36, but that’s as close as they would get.

Senior Reggie McWaine made a pair of free throws with 26.4 seconds left to complete the scoring.

“It was definitely a battle,” McWaine said. “It was a war. We knew we had come in and be ready to go and we stepped up. The first half it didn’t look that great, so we had to step up.”

Plainfield South out-rebounded Oswego East 20-11 in the first half.

“They came in confident and looking to win,” McWaine said. “We knew we had to stop the ball and stay in front of the ball. They were pretty good rebounding in the first half, but didn’t get as many later. We had to tighten that up and (Tucker) got a bunch of rebounds and helped us win.”

His breakaway dunk with 1:40 that had put the Wolves ahead 40-33 also helped.

“That felt really good,” he said. “Being on varsity basketball is very different and I like it a lot with all of the fans and everybody being into the game.”

McWaine had nine points and Myles Buchanan scored eight as Tucker was Oswego East’s only double figure scorer.

“It’s a new season for everybody and we knew it was going to be a dogfight,” Velasquez said. “I was really happy our boys competed for 32 minutes and were able to survive and advance. I think we played nine guys tonight and we need contributions from everybody and that’s not always scoring the basketball but doing the little things: boxing out, making the extra pass, getting on the floor, taking charges. Really proud of our effort.”

Pohlman, Damien Lewandowski, Torrin Ross and Lukas Adolfs each took a charge for the Wolves.

Huerta led all scores with 13 points for the Cougars while Nobles scored 10.