Ethan Vahl and Brayden Borrowman can feel the buzz of the football team’s success around the hallways at Oswego High School.

They feel it at practice, too.

Oswego’s basketball team has been without three players, two of them starters, during the football team’s playoff run to the Class 8A state championship.

Vahl and Borrowman look forward to the buzz carrying over to basketball. It was in the building on Monday, a huge crowd for the season opener.

“I’m proud of them [the football team], especially my friends and teammates,” Vahl said. “I feel like if we just keep winning, keep playing together, the crowd will be like that every night. We can win a lot of games.”

The good vibes at Oswego rolled indoors on Monday.

Vahl, a sophomore guard, scored 30 points. Borrowman, a 6-foot-5 senior guard, just missed a double-double and hit two key free throws in the final minute.

Oswego held off a furious West Aurora rally in the fourth quarter for a 51-48 win in the Hoops 4 Healing Tournament at Oswego.

“It’s amazing,” Borrowman said. “I believed we were going to win either way, with or without them. Once we get the football guys back we’ll have so much depth.”

Oswego’s basketball team is right now without starters Mariano Velasco, an all-state football player, as well as Graham Schwab and Caleb Miller.

But the Panthers led Monday from midway through the second quarter on. Borrowman’s 3-pointer with 2:59 left in the third quarter gave Oswego its biggest lead at 39-26.

“It’s been a grind,” Oswego coach Nick Oraham said. “Practice we only have seven healthy guys. If you look at the roster we had more sophomores than upperclassmen out there tonight. I thought the guys responded well with their first varsity experience.”

Vahl is technically one of those sophomores, but he’s also one of the state’s elite prospects in his class.

He picked up two fouls in the game’s first minute and missed the rest of the first quarter, but didn’t blink at adversity.

Vahl scored Oswego’s first 14 points of the second quarter. His runner off glass sent the Panthers into the fourth quarter ahead 41-30. Vahl shot 11 of 25 from the field and also had five rebounds.

“Not a ton is going to faze that kid,” Oraham said. “Buzzer-beater, end of the third quarter, the kid just responds. Glad he’s on our side.”

Vahl relished the head-to-head matchup with West Aurora junior Travis Brown, another one of the western suburbs’ top guards.

Brown scored a team-high 17 points for West Aurora.

“I’ve been playing with him probably since second grade. He’s one of my best friends,” Vahl said. “But when we step on the court, no friends. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since the schedule came out.”

Borrowman scored 10 points, all in the second half, and had seven rebounds for Oswego. He hit two of Oswego’s seven 3-pointers and also helped lead a 43-30 rebounding edge along with Cole Jansons and Niko Jurkovic, who combined for 13 rebounds.

“Brayden’s been at everything, worked extremely hard, showing up at 5:30 in the morning to get 400 shots up before school,” Oraham said. “He’s voted captain by his peers for a reason.”

Borrowman hit two free throws with 20.7 seconds left after West Aurora had cut what was a 10-point Oswego lead in the fourth quarter to 49-48 on two Brown free throws.

“I shoot free throws every single day, get in the gym at 5:30 in the morning,” Borrowman said. “It’s something I practice, it was just like any free throw I take.”

In the closing seconds, West Aurora missed a 3-point attempt for the tie.

The Blackhawks missed all 20 of their 3-point attempts and also shot just 8 of 16 from the free-throw line.

“You don’t survive in basketball these days not making a 3,” West Aurora coach Mike Fowler said. “I thought our defense kept us in it, especially in the second half.”

Jaden Matthews, one of five juniors to start for West Aurora, led the late comeback with 11 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter. The Blackhawks forced 20 turnovers.

“I put it on [Matthews], told him to not let Ethan catch the basketball for them and it seemed to get him going at the other end,” Fowler said. “Just being aggressive, getting in the paint. We have to be better all around scoring the basketball.”