It didn’t take long for Thornwood to figure out what it wanted to do Wednesday against Joliet West in the Riverside-Brookfield Bill VandeMerkt Thanksgiving Classic.

The Thunderbolts’ guards, especially Mekhi Young, Lester Watson and Jordan Jones, were able to use the dribble to get past the Joliet West guards and into the lane. Once there, they either continued to the bucket or pulled up for a floater. Either way, it was more than effective as the backcourt trio all scored in double digits to lead Thornwood to a 71-43 win over the Tigers. The win puts Thornwood at 2-0 in pool play, while West falls to 1-1.

Thornwood got out to an 8-0 lead, getting four points each from Young and Jones, before West got on the board on a basket by Aamir Shannon with 4:05 to play in the first. Starting with the basket, the Tigers played even with the Thunderbolts the rest of the quarter and went into the second trailing 15-7.

West continued to scratch and claw and pulled to within 21-15 midway through the second quarter. Thornwood, though, went on an 11-0 run, getting five points from Young (23 points), three from Watson (13 points) and three from Jones (11 points) in the stretch.

“We have seen a lot of Young, Jones and Watson,” West coach Jeremy Kreiger said. “We saw them the previous two years in this tournament and last year in the regional semifinal, so we knew that they are a high-powered offense. They are very quick and handle the ball very well. It’s hard for us to replicate that in practice.

“This is not foreign to us. Every year, whether we have a lot of talent coming back or if we have a lot of new guys, we try to figure out what the best combinations are on the floor. I always feel like these Thanksgiving tournaments are a good time for that. We’ve done it this way for the last six years and we have won six conference championships and ended with 20 or more wins.”

Deven Triplett played a big role for the Tigers, scoring a team-high 21 points off the bench. Abrey Robinson added 11 points, while Shinaayomi Adedoyin had a team-high five rebounds. Kreiger used everyone on the roster as the team tries to figure out who works best together.

“Deven Triplett did a real nice job tonight,” Kreiger said. “He was aggressive taking the ball to the basket and played hard when he was in there. Our sophomore, Abrey Robinson, went out and competed as well.”

Thonrwood took a 36-19 lead into halftime. Each team scored 14 points in the third quarter, with Robinson scoring seven points for West and Watson scoring six for Thornwood. The Thunderbolts outscored West 21-10 in the fourth as Young had six points, including a dunk on a breakaway, while Triplett scored four for West and teammate Trooper Price drained a 3-pointer.

“We had our two captains [Ryan Lipke and Luke Grevengoed] get injured in the first quarter and that didn’t help. But, our energy has to be better. We can’t come out flat. Other teams are going to be ready to play, and we have to be able to match that.

“It’s rare that a team wins or loses a game in the first quarter, but they can certainly set the tone for the rest of the game. Thornwood came out and set the tone early.”