Great teammates step up when others cannot.

With Plano big man Kevin Martinez sidelined for Friday’s opener in the 62nd annual Plano Reaper Classic, Alan Contreras felt he needed to do more.

He did.

Contreras scored a career-best 27 points and the Reapers held on for a 63-58 victory over Streator.

“It’s insane, I’ve come to realize we’re like the dream team,” Contreras said. “It always comes down to the last minute, and that’s when we perform the best. The confidence is there. We’re trusting our teammates more and being more aggressive. And I feel like I had to step up in more way with big man Kevin Martinez out. He could be back by the end of the tournament.”

The Bulldogs had beaten the Reapers, 55-49, when the teams played on Nov. 28.

“We’ve had a lot of battles with Plano over the years in this tournament, in this gym,” Streator coach Beau Doty said. “We’ve been fortunate in a lot of them recently have gone our way in kind of 50/50 games, I’m sure it was exciting in terms of the swings. Obviously, we turned the ball over way too much to be able to withstand a late surge and that’s something we want to shore up and take care of in a hurry.”

Plano (7-5) trailed 51-42 with 6:53 remaining after Kamdyn Darrow scored off a turnover for the Bulldogs.

“We didn’t put our heads down after getting down 9 after being up,” Plano junior Braylon Schmidt said. “Most of the game we battled, making sure our defense got after it, and in the end they couldn’t handle the pressure and we found ways to make steals into points.”

Streator (6-3) fell behind 19-12 after one quarter but rallied with a 7-0 run to tie it with 6:17 left in the second quarter.

Three-pointers from Christian Bruton and Layzeric Moton allowed the Bulldogs to open up a 34-27 lead with 6:17 left in the third quarter, but the Reapers answered with a 7-0 run, tying the game on a pair of free throws from Contreras, who would shoot 12-of-16 from the line.

Bruton split two free throws with 45 seconds left to pull the Bulldogs to within 59-56. 

Contreras followed with a pair to make it 61-56.

Brennen Stillwell’s putback got the Bulldogs to within 61-58 with 7.8 seconds left.

Again, Contreras made a couple more free throws, this time sealing it for good.

“Proud of these guys and what a game by Contreras,” Plano coach Kyle Kee said. “He did everything we want our point guard to do.”

Ethan Taxis had 13 points and Eric Nunez tallied 9 points, all on three-pointers, and Schmidt added 8 points for the Reapers.

“We just shrugged to make a lot of easy layups, and trouble getting to the lane, but when we do get there we do struggle to finish,” Plano coach Kyle Kee said. “But I told the guys, we’ve had so many comfortable games, it felt comfortable. Had a feeling we’d come back. Proud of these guys. And we feel we should be winners bracket. We let the game slip away when we played them before. They made plays, but we feel like we’re one of the top eight teams in the tournament. Now we get to see where we go from here. We want to be playing good teams and we’re going to be facing good teams the next three days.”

Bruton led the Bulldogs with 14 points while Joe Hoekstra had 11 points and 15 rebounds. Stillwell added 10 points and Moton and Kamdryn Darrow each had 8 points.

“We’ve got to be more consistent with our fundamentals,” Doty said. “And we’re still a young group and the first time in a pressure cooker on the road. It’s a tournament, but it’s a road game, 7 o’clock, their place and it got chaotic there at the end. And it’s something the kids need to put in their mental banks and take and grow from.”