The Joliet West basketball team doesn’t always take the most direct path to success.

At times, as was the case in the third quarter of Monday’s game with Thornton at the MLK Dream Classic at Homewood-Flossmoor, the Tigers look like they are capable of executing at a very high rate.

But at other times, not so much.

Fortunately for Joliet West those pockets of high level basketball were longer than the ones that weren’t as the Tigers found their way to a 58-55 victory.

Joliet West (11-8) played a nearly flawless third quarter that included a 10-2 scoring run that turned a back-and-forth game into a 40-33 lead.

The Tigers kept going into the early fourth quarter where a 5-0 run extended their lead to 50-37.

But then things started to crack at the seams. A series of Joliet West turnovers allowed Thornton to slowly chip into the lead.

“I think it is just us learning to fight through the adversity of tough moments in a basketball game,” Joliet West coach Jeremy Kreiger said. “You work so hard to get to that point not realizing that the same thing that got you there it will still work, not realizing that you have the tools in your toolbox to take care of this.”

Thornton (7-9) refused to go away quietly though.

After Ryan Lipke gave Joliet West a 53-42 lead after splitting a pair of free throws, Thornton would rattle of the games next nine points when Dakari Nesbitt (24 points) finished of the Thornton run with a basket with just over a minute to play.

Aamir Shannon (16 points) stopped the run by knocking down a pair of free throws with 1:09 to play in the game, but Thornton quickly answered with a basket before Elijah Wilson canned a pair of free throws with 29 seconds to play to keep Joliet West in front by two possessions, 57-53.

Thornton opted for a quick two, once again from Nesbitt, before fouling Shannon with 9.7 seconds to play. Shannon made one of two, missing the second, forcing a scattered possession from Thornton that resulted with a missed 3-point attempt and a hard-fought win for Joliet West.

“We just need to focus on what we need to do and keep the same energy and keep pushing hard,” Shannon said. “We needed to be aggressive on both ends of the floor. We needed to continue to play the same game we did in the third quarter and not let the fourth quarter speed us up.”

Ball control was a persistent problem for Joliet West as frequent turnovers made the outcome a lot dicier than it may have been.

“With the nature of their guards, short and quick and they love to trap you, when you speed yourself up and try to dribble through it, you are only going to dribble yourself into trouble,” Kreiger said. “The hardest position to learn and execute on the floor is point guard. So because we don’t have a natural point guard that’s played it his whole life other than Elijah (Wilson), we’re trying to teach them on the fly.

“So it’s kind of like, are you willing to sacrifice some unsavory basketball for the right for them to learn how to play it when it matters most?”

Brockton Goehrke added 13 points and Luke Grevengoed also added 10 for Joliet West.