Peotone got off to a bit of a slow start in Friday’s Illinois Central Eight Conference matchup with Herscher, but by the third quarter, the host Blue Devils started to pull away.

After trailing by four points at halftime, the Blue Devils (8-7, 5-1 ICE) went on to win 51-38, outscoring the Tigers (5-9, 2-3) 15-5 in the third quarter and 12-5 in the fourth.

Junior Ethan McNeill led Peotone with 18 points Friday, 12 of which came in the second half. He said the team needed to reset a bit at halftime, and that’s exactly what they did.

“The first quarter, we weren’t really bringing it,” he said. “We got a good speech in the locker room, and we came out and played better.”

Herscher was able to hold off Peotone for a couple minutes to open the third, turning a 28-24 halftime lead into a 32-28 advantage, but that is when Peotone buckled down.

An and-1 from senior Tyler Walker kicked off a 10-0 run for the Blue Devils. The final basket of that run came after Walker battled over two Tigers for an offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to McNeill, who drained a 3-pointer to make it 38-32. That was the Blue Devils’ first offensive rebound of the game.

“It felt great,” Walker said of that pivotal play. “My shot wasn’t falling that much, so I just tried to drive and get as many layups as I can and get as many passes, as many assists as I can.”

The normally sharpshooting Walker struggled from deep on Friday, but still finished second on the team in scoring with 12 points and tied McNeill for second on the team with five rebounds.

Alex Chenoweth joined McNeill and Walker in double figures with 10 points. Nick Cronin added five points, while Nate Wehrmann had four points and a team-high seven rebounds.

Peotone head coach Ron Oloffson said the team’s strong second half was a bit surprising, if only from the perspective that neither team’s effort seemed to change much.

“In the third quarter we executed a little better, but I’m not really sure what happened to be honest, other than we just kept playing hard and we executed,” he said. “I think we play extremely hard (all season), and that’s what we have to do. If we can just improve our execution a little more, we can have more wins like this.”

Herscher’s hot start was fueled by Tyler Lundberg, who scored nine points in the first quarter. He finished with 10 points for the game to lead the team. Tanner Jones and Austin Buckley added eight points apiece.

The Tigers shot just 9 of 20 from the free-throw line as a team. They had several open 3-pointers that didn’t fall as well, and head coach Drew Boudreau said that was the difference in a game he felt was evenly matched.

“3s and free throws, that’s what it came down to,” he said. “If we hit half of those shots, we probably win the game. But I told them that’s basketball. Shots are going to fall one night and they might not the next. It hurts, because I though defensively we did really well, which is where we thrive. The shots just didn’t fall.”

After a Saturday clash with Iroquois West, Herscher will have a busy week at home with conference matchups with Wilmington on Tuesday and Streator on Friday before a nonconference matchup with Paxton-Buckley-Loda.

Wilmington and Streator are two of three ICE teams with one conference loss on the season, joining Peotone.

Streator is also coming up on the Blue Devil’s schedule. After visiting Lisle on Tuesday, the Blue Devils will host the Bulldogs on Jan. 20 and then visit rival Manteno on Jan. 23 for the fourth matchup this season between the two teams.

While Lisle (5-11, 1-5) may be a bit further down the ICE standings, Oloffson said he expects that to be another close conference battle.

“Lisle, that’s a tough place to play and a lot of team’s have had trouble there,” he said. “Then we’ve got an important week of practice for Streator after Lisle.”

Four of Lisle’s five wins this season have come at home.