It may not have been the prettiest basketball game ever played, but there was plenty of excitement Friday night when Wilmington went into overtime to secure a 47-42 win over Illinois Central Eight rival Coal City.

Defense was the order of the day for both teams. Wilmington (14-6, 6-3) forced Coal City into 15 turnovers, while the Coalers (8-11, 0-8) forced Wilmington, which was missing starting point guard Brysen Meents due to an injury, into 23 turnovers.

With just over 1:30 left to play in regulation, Wilmington’s Ryan Kettman (14 points, eight rebounds) scored on a fast break to give his team a 36-31 lead. Coal City wasn’t quite ready to pack up and go home, though, and scored on a basket by Parker Jacovec (12 points, six rebounds off the bench). After a Wilmington turnover, the Coalers got the ball back. Carter Nicholson missed a 3-pointer, but Jacovec grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked it out to Braden Walker, who drained a 3-pointer to tie it with 12.7 seconds left.

Wilmington called timeout and drew up a play for the last shot, but Coal City tipped the ball out of bounds under the basket with 2.1 seconds left. The Wildcats’ last-second shot at the buzzer fell short and the game went into overtime.

The Wildcats started the extra period with a putback basket by Brodie Strong (8 points, 10 rebounds) and a fast-break basket by Declan Moran (15 points, 5 rebounds). After Coal City’s Connor Henline scored to make it 40-38, Strong delivered another putback bucket. Jacovec answered with a basket in the lane to cut it to 42-40. With 1:07 left, Moran hit a pair of free throws. Twenty seconds later, Travis Van Duyne made two free throws to put Wilmington ahead 46-40. Dane Noffsinger (12 points) scored for Coal City, but Van Duyne sealed it with a free throw with 7.8 seconds left.

“We got the win. That’s the big thing,” Kettman said. “Some guys who haven’t played much this year were able to get in there and they stepped up.

“It all starts for us on defense. That’s more what we are known for. We want to use our defense to create offense in transition and to keep the other team’s score down so we don’t have to score as much.”

Van Duyne scored seven points for the Wildcats, which also got quality contributions off the bench from Evan Ostheim, Ryker Feil and Tyler Krand.

“Getting the win with Brysen Meents not playing was big for us” Wilmington coach Doug Krop said. “We knew that Coal City would give us their best effort, and they did. But, one of our goals this season was to sweep Coal City and we did that.

“I thought we grew tonight. Tuesday [a loss to Reed-Custer] was the first game we played without Brysen, and we were still figuring things out. We did better with that tonight. And, I think our defense is one of the best in the conference. When we are locked in and playing hard on defense, we can be tough. We only have so many points in us, so keep the other team to as few as possible is what we want to do.”

Noffsinger and Jacovec each scored 12 points to lead Coal City, while Walker added eight. Gavin Berger led the Coalers with nine rebounds.

“We did a lot of good things, but it wasn’t quite enough,” Coal City coach Joe Micetich said. “There were a lot of loose balls and both teams went hard after them. If we get one or two more of them, maybe it’s a different game.

“Parker Jacovec brought real good energy in the post. We wanted to go inside to score when Moran got in foul trouble in the first half, and Parker did a good job. Him getting 12 points was huge for us.”