Boys Basketball: Bolingbrook bounces back in big way to top Lincoln-Way East

BOLINGBROOK – The game went rather poorly for the Bolingbrook boys basketball team Monday against New Trier.

So, Tuesday’s matchup against visiting Lincoln-Way East provided an immediate opportunity to get back into the basketball mode that the Raiders prefer to be defined as playing.

It didn’t take long for the Raiders to demonstrate that they were ready to fix what ailed them as they broke out to a huge lead over the Griffins and eventually claimed a 74-35 victory in SouthWest Suburban Conference action.

“I was proud of how our guys responded, and I really challenged our guys in the postgame, and I was thoroughly disappointed with yesterday. Not so much in losing the game but in the way we lost,” Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost said. “It was good to see the energy back, and it was good to see us play like we are capable of.”

Bolingbrook (15-6) wasted no time in establishing itself, scoring the first fifteen points of the game and not allowing Lincoln-Way East to score until the 3:37 mark of the first quarter.

The Raiders weren’t flawless on offense but they created so many extra opportunities for themselves by forcing turnovers that it would have been difficult for them not to build a substantial early lead.

“Our defensive intensity was far superior today than really the last three or four games to be perfectly honest,” Brost said. “These stretches where we have four games in six days, sometimes that’s difficult, but there’s no excuse, we need to do better and we will.”

That defensive intensity didn’t disappear after the early surge. Bolingbrook scored the first 19 points of the second quarter, building a 42-9 lead. Lincoln-Way East didn’t score until the 1:50 mark of the second quarter and then scored the last seven points of the half to make a tiny dent in Bolingbrook’s halftime advantage.

And while Bolingbrook continued to stack points, it did so very unselfishly. Josh Aniceto led the Raiders with 14 points and MJ Langit cracked double digits with 12 points. Seven different players managed to score at least six points in the game for the Raiders, with two others scoring four each.

“Yesterday we scored 37 points total (65-37 loss to New Trier), and today I think we had 37 points with four minutes to go in the second quarter,” Brost said. “You can’t compare games, obviously, but we want to compete and beat teams like last night, and we have done that earlier in the year. Every team goes through stretches of the season where they are not playing very well and stuff just isn’t gelling right. We’ll see what happens on Friday, and we’ll come back in tomorrow and get to work, and the things we need to work on are still the same.

Tylon Toliver led Lincoln-Way East (7-11) with 11 points.