A third quarter rally and some intriguing clock management in the closing minutes of Wednesday night’s Class 4A Schaumburg Sectional semifinal gave the OPRF boys basketball team hope that a rematch with Proviso East in the title game was a possibility, but the sectional host quelled the uprising with some accurate free-throw shooting down the stretch, handing the Huskies a 64-60 loss and ending their season.
OPRF closes out the 2011-12 campaign with a 20-7 overall record, a West Suburban (Silver) Conference title and its first regional championship since 2008 when Iman Shumpert was a senior — Shumpert is now a guard for the New York Knicks.
Despite chipping away to get their first lead of the game to end the third quarter, the Huskies couldn’t stop Schaumburg in the final period. The Saxons (24-5) outscored OPRF 14-2 over a six minute stretch to get back on top and remained there for the rest of the game.
“It wasn’t just the fourth quarter that was tough,” said Huskies senior guard Ka’Darryl Bell. “The whole game in general was tough. (Schaumburg) is a really tough atmosphere to play in, probably the toughest that we’ve played in all year. It wasn’t just the fourth quarter that did it to us, it was just a tough environment overall.”
Senior forward Gabe Levin connected on his only bucket of the second half with six seconds left in the game to put the Huskies within two, but Schaumburg junior guard Kyle Bolger followed that up by making consecutive free-throws to give the Saxons the 64-60 victory. The Saxons final 14 points of the game all came from the free-throw line.
Bell led the Huskies with 20 points, including three three-point field goals. Levin (11 points, 10 rebounds) and junior forward/center Tacourrus Mattox (10 points) also helped keep the Huskies in the game.
Bell’s career as a Huskie has now come to an end, but he said he is glad to have gotten this far with his teammates to end his high school campaign.
“Just playing with this team,” said Bell of the memories he’ll hold dear to his heart. The point guard is headed to Bradley University next fall. “Last year, we didn’t have a winning record; now to have a winning team and to get this far is a real plus. We have a great group of guys with a lot of juniors that will be back next year, and will hopefully be up to par if not better than us.”
OPRF head coach Matt Maloney said he will always treasure this particular group of seniors.
“It will be hard to duplicate this group of seniors,” he said. “(Junior guard) Alex Gustafson said it best: ‘In one word … special.'”
