Romeoville Defense Throttles Minooka 39-30

The Romeoville boys basketball team earned a Southwest Prairie Conference road win and pulled into a tie for first place in the league via a 39-30 victory over Minooka on Friday night.

The Spartans held the Indians to just two made baskets in each of the first and third quarters to run their record to 2-2 overall and 1-0 in the SPC. Minooka fell to 2-3 and 0-1.

"It is what it is, and I thought we earned it on the defensive end," Romeoville coach Jeff Bambule said. "We were worried about their shooters and inside game. I thought we did a nice job holding them down and forcing some turnovers. It was an ugly game, but we'll take it. A win's a win."

Antwan Hill, who scored most of his points during the final seconds of each quarter, was the lone player on either side to reach double figures with 12 points.

"It was our first conference game, and I didn't know what to expect," Hill said. "In the second half, I relaxed and we moved the ball around pretty good. They started overplaying me. I just went to the basket more."

"Antwan can do that for us," Bambule said. "He did a nice job with his decision-making. He did a good job of trying to be patient and took some good shots."

Minooka and Romeoville each had two field goals in the first quarter as the Spartans led 7-4 after eight minutes.

Neither team led by more than three points until Hill's basket at the first-half horn gave Romeoville a 19-13 lead heading into the locker room.

Hill's free throw and basket, all coming in the final seconds, doubled the Spartans current output in the quarter and pushed the Spartans' lead to 25-18 after three quarters.

Minooka was no closer than seven the rest of the game.

Devin Purnell added six points for Romeoville.

Minooka's high scorer was Anthony Thomas, who scored six points.

"We knew it wasn't going to be easy, and it was going to be a battle of the boards," Hill said. "It's going to be like that every game, night in and night out."

"Everybody's talking about our conference," Bambule said. "It's going to be tough and there isn't going to be a night off for anybody in this league."