Boys basketball: No. 1-ranked Homewood-Flossmoor too much for Bolingbrook

BOLINGBROOK – Even the best of teams gives up a scoring run to an opponent once in awhile.

But what good teams usually don’t do is give up scoring runs in multiple waves as Bolingbrook did in its 80-64 loss to visiting Homewood-Flossmoor on Wednesday.

Fueled by multiple double-digit scoring runs, the Viking, the No. 1-ranked team in the Associated Press Class 4A poll, handed Bolingbrook its first SouthWest Suburban Conference Blue loss since a March 5, 2021, loss to Lockport.

“You have to give them credit. [H-F] played really well,” Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost said. “There was a stretch in the third quarter toward the end of and the beginning of the fourth where we just didn’t hit shots. They kind of took control of the game at that point. We had a similar stretch like in the second quarter, as well. And when you’re playing, H-F you can’t have those.”

H-F (23-2, 5-0 SWSC Blue) had multiple scoring runs in the game, but the most critical one for the Vikings may have come midway through the third quarter.

Davion Thompson, who had a game-high 27 points for Bolingbrook, had just pulled the Raiders to within 41-37. That capped a 6-0 run for the Raiders, and H-F’s response was impressive as it rattled off the game’s next seven points and pushed the lead back to 13 with what turned out to be a 13-4 scoring push.

Bolingbrook (18-4, 3-1) wouldn’t get the lead lower than seven points the rest of the way, and another 10-point run midway through the fourth by H-F squelched hopes of a comeback.

“We didn’t help our cause some of the time by being on the correct assignments,” Brost said. “But we’ll grow from this and get better, and you’ve got to give them a lot of credit.”

H-F’s dominant effort was fostered by Gianni Cobb and Bryce Heard. Each finished with 26 points, while Carson Brownfield added another 15 points for the Vikings, who were relentless on the offensive end.

“We’re a fast-paced team,” H-F coach Jamere Dismukes said. “I think when we’re playing fast, we’re at our best. When we slow the ball down and try to do things outside of our nature we struggle. I think we had about 16 points in transition today, if I’m not mistaken. So if you can score 14 to 20 points in transition, you can pretty much win any game. So that was our game plan. Make sure we get on the glass, and once we got on the glass we wanted to outlet fast and advance it up the floor.”

That worked particularly well with Cobb, as the lightning-quick senior was faster with the ball in his hands than most are without it.

H-F’s various sources of offense proved to be too much to counterbalance Bolingbrook, which got the lion’s share of its offense from only two sources: Thompson and J.T. Pettigrew, who finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Thompson was game in trying to keep Bolingbrook in the thick of things, scoring 20 second-half points.

“He didn’t shoot it particularly well in the first half,” Brost said of Thompson. “But he had a really good second half. Obviously, he’s capable of being great and he was in the second half.

“But we just have to get better as a crew and better as a team.”

It appeared the second half wouldn’t be intriguing at all, as Bolingbrook was on the brink of letting the game get completely away from it in the second quarter.

H-F went on a 12-0 scoring flurry that allowed it to build a 13-point advantage at 29-16, but the Raiders answered with a 13-5 scoring push fueled by Thompson and Pettigrew that allowed Bolingbrook to close the gap to 35-29 at the break.