The Mendota boys basketball team came out slow Saturday in the rescheduled Colmone Classic championship game against host Hall.

The Trojans were held scoreless for the first 3:02 and did not hit a field goal through the first 4:20 as they fell behind by seven points.

Then Mendota stepped up on defense.

Mendota held the Red Devils scoreless for more than three minutes as the Trojans rallied to take a one-point lead and trailed by a point going to the second quarter.

The Trojans took control in the second quarter, scoring 26 points in the period as they went on to win 67-48.

“We’ve had a lot of those games where we start slow on offense,” Mendota coach Steve Wasmer said. “I have to figure out a way for that not to happen. Part of it was their defense, too. They were flying around. They had a lot of intensity coming out. But for us, it has to be stops defensively to get in the transition game. I thought that was the difference.”

The win gave Mendota its second ever Colmone championship.

“It’s kind of a surreal moment,” Mendota senior Aden Tillman said. “We’ve been striving to do this for a little while. To finally get it done means a lot.”

The Trojans’ other title came in 2012.

“It feels good,” Wasmer said. “This is my favorite tournament, so it means a lot. There’s a lot of area teams and a lot of teams we don’t play often. It means a lot to the guys and that’s an important thing. I think it will give us some confidence moving forward.”

The Red Devils took a 9-2 lead after Noah Plym hit all of his free throws after being fouled on a 3-pointer.

But Tillman hit three of his own and then drove for a bucket to start a 12-2 run for Mendota.

“To close out that first quarter we really picked it up,” Tillman said. “We just really had to get the gears turning and get everything going before we went into the quarter break because we can’t have a stoppage of play while feeling bad about ourselves. We really wanted some momentum going before the second quarter.”

Oliver Munoz drained a 3-pointer on Mendota’s second possession of the second quarter to start a barrage of treys by the Trojans.

Mendota knocked down six 3s in the second as the Trojans outscored Hall 26-7 to take a 40-22 halftime lead.

“Shooting’s contagious a lot of times,” Wasmer said. “We got good shots. We moved the ball really well, which helps.”

Hall coach Mike Filippini said the long range shooting in the first half was the difference.

“We were 1 for 7 from the 3-point line and they were 7 for 12,” Filippini said. “That’s the story of the game. They had 21 points off 3s (in the first half) and we had three, so that put us down and we never got it closer.

“We keep telling them, we’re 6-3 but we have to learn that when things don’t go our way to keep fighting and not get down on ourselves.”

Mendota also locked down on defense. After giving up 15 points in the first quarter, the Trojans held the Red Devils to 12 over the second and third quarters.

“Defensively, it was the best four quarters consecutively that we’ve played by far,” Wasmer said. “We were talking. We had a ton of effort. We took a couple charges. That’s all stuff that could make us a really, really good team if we continue it.”

Chace Sterling had a big first quarter for Hall with eight of his team-high 12 points, but the Red Devils had a hard time putting the ball in the basket after the opening eight minutes. Braden Curran finished with 10 points for Hall.

“We got Chace going and Braden had a couple baskets,” Filippini said about the first quarter. “We just looked like we had more confidence. The second quarter we kind of lost it. We have to keep finding a way to score points when are shots aren’t falling.”

Aden Tillman scored a game-high 18 points for Mendota (7-3), while Cole Tillman finished with 13 points.

Cole Tillman was named tournament MVP. Munoz joined his teammate on the all-tournament team, while the Red Devils were represented by Sterling and Curran.

Fieldcrest’s Kash Klendworth and Layten Gerdes, St. Bede’s Gino Ferrari, IVC’s Brady Ward, Eureka’s Jack Blunier and Kewanee’s Chris Crowe rounded out the all-tournament team.

Mendota next plays in the Plano Christmas Classic. The No. 7-seeded Trojans open against Hinckley-Big Rock at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 26. The Red Devils head to the Seneca Shipyard Showdown as the No. 2 seed where they open against DePue at noon Dec. 23.