Plainfield North boys, girls both pull away from Joliet Central with big second halves

PLAINFIELD – It doesn’t always pan out that boys and girls basketball teams get to play in a doubleheader on the same court. Plainfield North and Joliet Central were able to make that happen Thursday night, however, as the Steelmen visited the Tigers.

It was a good night for the home teams, as they secured the program sweep. Interestingly, both games went similarly with competitive first halves that saw the Tigers pull away in the second.

The girls played first, with Plainfield North putting some distance between itself and Joliet Central in the final two quarters for a 60-42 victory. The Plainfield North boys also saw a close start turn into a runaway finish for a 65-40 win behind Quintin Wiencek’s nine 3-pointers and 31 points.

The win gave the Plainfield North girls possession of third place in the Southwest Prairie Conference. At 16-6 overall and 6-3 in the SPC West, the Tigers have to be feeling good about where they’re at.

That’s especially true after the game against the Steelmen started as a nail-biter. No one scored in the first 2½ minutes, but the Tigers picked up steam from there, taking an 8-3 edge with 2:30 left in the first.

It was the Steelmen’s turn to get hot from there, however, as Nevaeh Wright drained a 3-pointer to start an 11-0 run that continued into the second quarter. Up 14-8, the Steelmen then battled with the Tigers, exchanging leads much of the quarter until Wright tied the game at 19-all. The Tigers managed to close the half with a 28-23 advantage.

The Tigers continued that pace in the third, thanks to a hot start from Taylor Henderson. An 8-1 run by the Tigers to start the second helped set the tone, and the lead grew to 45-31 by the end of the period. The Tigers held on from there.

“I think we just adjusted our mindset in the second half,” Tigers coach Brittany McWaine said. “We just locked in on defense. ...I love that we focused on movement and having versatility in that second half.”

The Tigers were led by Sydney Scott (12 points), Henderson (11 points) and Isabella Koldoff (10 points). 10 out of 12 girls on the roster scored at least two points.

As for the Steelmen (10-14, 4-2 SPC East), the feeling has to be one of frustration after Wright put up 22 points on the evening. Elena Moody added eight points, but coach Laura Brumfiel expressed disappointment in her team’s effort in the final 16 minutes.

“We’ve got to play four quarters of basketball,” Brumfiel said. “We played hard, but we have to play smart.”

Scott said the hope was the Tigers would take the momentum from this game through the rest of the regular season.

“I think we have a lot of momentum heading into the next couple of games,” Scott said. “Beating Yorkville [on Wednesday] was a huge thing for us, and we got another good win tonight. It’s important to keep that momentum going.”

The boys game that followed may as well have copied and pasted the script from the girls contest.

The Tigers jumped out to a 10-2 lead before it was cut to 13-9 by the end of the first quarter. Pierre Pointer’s steal and score to start the second was followed by a 3-pointer from Wiencek to extend the lead to nine before Central caught fire.

Joliet Central used an 11-0 run to take the lead just as the girls had, although the boys' lead was just 20-18 and was short-lived. The two teams battled to a draw for much of the second quarter with the score standing at 27-27 before Wiencek hit a 3-pointer with two seconds left in the half to make it 30-27 Tigers at halftime.

Again, the script was nearly identical to the girls game. Pointer needed just nine seconds to make it a six-point game in the third, and a layup by Joseph Charonneau with five minutes left in the quarter extended the advantage to double digits. A layup by Erick Contreras later cut it to single digits, but an 8-2 run by the Tigers made it 46-32 late.

The Steelmen managed a half-court buzzer-beater by Ernesto Rivas to trim the deficit to 50-36 and battled back from being down 20 in the fourth. However, the result was the same.

“I feel like we picked up the pressure a little bit defensively [in the second half],” Tigers coach Robert Krahulik said. “We moved the ball a little bit more and got better looks at the basket, and obviously Q hitting nine 3s was big.”

Q being Wiencek, who scored 20 of his 31 points in the first half. Pointer was second with 16 points, while six other players finished with at least one for the Tigers (11-9, 5-5).

Joliet Central (2-17, 1-9) was led by Bernal Fox (11 points) and Jevontae McCann (nine points).

Even with the victory, the Tigers will be looking to get better, too.

“We just want to keep playing as a team,” Pointer said. “Moving the ball and playing in transition will be key. We just want to get a lot more guys involved because when we play as a team, we’re pretty great.”