Boys basketball: Sterling rallies from nine-point halftime deficit, beats Rock Falls behind Schilling’s 37 in wire-to-wire thriller

ROCK FALLS – The Sterling and Rock Falls boys basketball teams delivered one of the best high school basketball games of the year Saturday night at Tabor Gym to close out the Sauk Valley Shootout.

After a back-and-forth affair, the Golden Warriors emerged victorious over the rival Rockets, winning 67-61 in a nail-biter.

“We knew this was going to be the type of game where they were going to throw their best shot – I mean, it’s a rivalry game,” Sterling junior point guard John Paul Schilling said. “The adjustments were just, we gotta want it more than they did. And I think we did in the second half.”

Schilling came up huge for the Warriors down the stretch. He tied the game at 55-55 with a top-of-the-key 3-pointer with 4:34 to play, then gave Sterling the lead at 57-55 with a turnaround midrange jumper with 3:56 to go. He regained the lead at 61-60 on a layup through contact with about 1:40 left, and retook the lead for good at 62-61 on a steal and fast-break layup through a double team with about 57 seconds left.

That final go-ahead bucket came on an acrobatic move. After stealing the ball, Schilling went coast-to-coast, made a spin move around Rock Falls’ Booker Cross in the lane, and threw the shot up over his head as he was falling to the ground.

Schilling finished with a game-high 37 points, including 23 in the second half – with 16 of those coming in the fourth quarter. He also made 10-of-12 free throw attempts and three 3-pointers.

Sterling coach Ryan Vasquez called it a “historic” performance for Schilling and praised the team’s overall effort.

“John is John. We’ll put the ball in his hands and let him go to work, and he’ll be the first one to tell you that those 37 points weren’t the only thing that won it for us,” Vasquez said. “He’s got teammates behind him, and that was a historic game from him. But the bottom line is that’s a great team win.”

The fast-paced and high-scoring first quarter set the tone for the entire game, with both teams trading baskets up until the buzzer.

Schilling and Rock Falls guard Timmy Heald went back-and-forth in the first quarter, as the two teams struggled to separate early.

Schilling attacked the basket early and often, scoring nine of his 14 first-half points in the first quarter. Heald provided instant offense for Rock Falls off the bench, nailing three 3-pointers in the first quarter and scoring 11 of his 14 points in the first half.

Sterling maintained a slight lead for most of the opening quarter, but Heald’s buzzer-beating 3 shifted the momentum over to Rock Falls’ side temporarily, and the Rockets led 18-16 after eight minutes.

In the second quarter, the Rockets began to take control of the game. Junior guard Diego Hernandez hit a 3-pointer with 7:31 left to make it 21-16. Then Heald drove to the basket and converted a layup to make it 25-18 with about four minutes left in the half. Cross sank a pair of free throws with 1:21 left and went 1-for-2 from the line on a subsequent trip to push Rock Falls into the half leading 33-24.

Rock Falls coach Zach Sandrock said good ball movement set his team up for success in the first half.

“I thought we did a really good job early in the game of moving the ball and waiting for the best shot possible. We were patient and waited for the open shots, and I think when we move the ball and we wait for late shot in the possession, we do a really good job of knocking those down,” Sandrock said.

In the second half, and especially the fourth quarter, the ball movement and shot selection weren’t as good, and it opened the door for Sterling to come back, Sandrock said.

“I think later in the game, the one thing we started doing was rushing and taking forced shots and playing ‘me’ ball a few times instead of ‘we’ ball, so that’s the biggest thing,” he said. “We move the ball, we get open shots. We play ‘me’ ball, we turn the ball over and don’t get those in-rhythm shots.”

In the first half, Rock Falls made six 3-pointers and won the rebound battle. At halftime, Vasquez said his message to the team was simply “get stops”.

“They were just making shots, and kudos to them. They made some tough shots tonight,” Vasquez said. “They ran some really good offense there, and it was about getting stops for our guys down the stretch. I’m a firm believer that’s what got us over the hump.”

In the third quarter, the Golden Warriors started to gain ground. A Tyree Kelly putback made it a 35-30 game with 6:05 on the clock. Lucas Austin followed with a 3-pointer about a minute later to pull within two at 35-33.

Rock Falls responded with a small run out of its own, stretching the lead to 46-39 midway through the third quarter. Sterling got back within two points at 46-44 with 44.7 seconds left in the quarter after a Schilling contact layup and free throw by Trevor Dir, who subbed in for the shot as a cut on Schilling’s leg was tended to on the sideline.

Ayden Goff then closed out the third quarter with a buzzer-beater 3 for Rock Falls, extending its lead to 49-44.

In the final quarter, Sterling outscored Rock Falls 23-12. The two teams swapped leads multiple times in the last four minutes, as the game went from tied at 55, to tied at 57, to Rock Falls leading 61-58, to Sterling leading 62-61.

Schilling really imposed his will in the fourth quarter, scoring those 16 points and foiling the Rockets’ last hope at extending the game with a blocked 3-point shot to preserve a 65-61 lead in the last 10 seconds. After the blocked shot, Sterling got the rebound, and Schilling drew the intentional foul and knocked down a pair of free throws to close out the game at 67-61.

He credited his scoring outburst to the spacing his teammates provided him.

“My teammates made it easy for me to attack. They spaced the floor good, and that’s basically it. We had good spacing, so it was easy to attack,” Schilling said.

Sandrock heaped praise on Schilling as well, while saying he wasn’t sure his defense could have done much more to contain him.

“Credit to him. He hit some real tough shots. We tried our best to keep him out of the lane,” Sandrock said. “I thought we did pretty well against him, but he hit contested shots all night. We got a hand up and he still knocked them down, so credit to him for what he did tonight. I was proud of our boys and how we worked and tried to keep him out of the lane, but he’s a tough force to stop.”

Austin and Kelly were also impact players on the Sterling side. Austin scored eight of his 10 points in the second half and snagged seven rebounds, while Kelly scored all eight of his points in the second half and grabbed 11 rebounds.

Rock Falls had three scorers in double figures. Goff led the group with 17 points and three 3-pointers, Gavin Sands scored 16 points and made two 3-pointers, and Heald scored 14 points, made five 3-pointers and snagged five rebounds.

Dan Wussow

Dan Wussow

Dan is the sports editor for Sauk Valley Media. Previously, he wrote for The Post-Crescent in his hometown of Appleton, WI.