It is an army of few.

But a powerful army nonetheless possessed by the Kankakee basketball team.

Using just six players, Kankakee eventually wore down a gritty Joliet West squad for 65-52 victory on Wednesday night that capped the regular season for both teams.

“That’s been our thing all season,” Kankakee coach Chris Pickett said. “And we really focus on being disciplined so we won’t get into foul trouble.

“When you look around the state, I’ve been taking a deep dive into these teams and when they have five good players on the floor you want to try to stick with them as much as you can.”

It’s hard to argue with that logic, especially as the Kays (26-1) have one of the more dynamic talent bases in the state led by seniors Lincoln Williams and EJ Hazelett.

Hazelett helped Kankakee weather an early storm against a Joliet West (20-10) squad that seemed determined to display its mettle early on.

Joliet West led 18-14 after the first quarter, but a stronger second quarter effort from Kankakee keyed by nine of his game-high 20 points, Hazelett made sure Joliet West wasn’t able to continue to ride a wave of early momentum.

“This was definitely a great game for us going into the postseason,” Hazelett said. “Getting us ready for those close games and these teams that are going to challenge us every game.

“At this point of the year we’re used to this,” Hazelett said about the heavy minutes expected of Kankakee’s key players. “Coach has got us running every day and it is helping us in the long run.

“I think we’re in a great position. We’ve got to fine tune some things and make it better for the postseason and I’m ready to see how that looks.”

It took quite a while for Kankakee to shake free of Joliet West and the game was tied late in the third quarter at 41 after a Josh Calvert 3-pointer.

But Kankakee scored the final six points of the third quarter and then went on a 9-4 run to start the fourth to push the lead into double digits.

Deven Triplett’s 3-pointer, as part of his 17-point effort, drew Joliet West back to within 56-47, but Kankakee quickly re-established a 15-point lead and finished things off to make the game appear considerably wider in score gap than the game really was.

Ryan Lipke also had 17 points for Joliet West.

“We got what we wanted out of the game in terms of what we experienced but the level of disappointment and emotion in the locker room is something that I had to try to fine tune,” Joliet West coach Jeremy Kreiger said. “Young people are so results driven and they are not understanding what went wrong in that gym was supposed to go wrong and we need to learn from it and then utilize it next Wednesday.”

Joliet West, a No. 5 seed, opens the postseason at the Lockport Regional with a quarterfinal matchup against Bloom on Wednesday, while Kankakee, ranked No. 1 in the most recent Associated Press Class 3A poll, begins its postseason journey as the top seed at the Geneseo Regional and will play a yet to be determined opponent also Wednesday.

“We are where we need to be,” Pickett said in regards to his team’s quest to make a run for the Class 3A title. “It’s a good accomplishment for the regular season, but its coach talk when you say its a new season because it literally is.

“If we go out there and do anything different than what we’ve been doing, it could be over in a flip of a switch.”