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PEORIA – Keith Randolph, Jr. led the way with 19 points, and E.J. Liddell and Jaylin Mosby had 14 each as defending IHSA Class 4A champion Belleville West advanced to its second consecutive final with a 70-48 win over Chicago Curie in the second semifinal game on Friday night at Carver Arena in Peoria.
The Maroons broke open a close game in the first quarter by outscoring the Condors 62-41 over the final three periods in going on to the win.
“This is a great win for our guys,” said West coach Joe Muniz. “I thought we shared the basketball really well tonight, I thought we guarded them exceptionally well. I was really worried watching them on film. They play five guards, and how quick they were, and they shot it well. They’re good. I was just hoping that we could keep them in front, and I thought we did a great job.”
The Maroons were ready for the kind of pressure defense Curie played.
“We knew their pressure, we prepared for it,” Muniz said. “If we kept looking at the basket, their pressure is really good up top, but the closer we got to the basket, the easier it was for us to score. The guys shared the basketball exceptionally well.”
The West defense forced the Condors to hit some tough shots, and seeing Liddell, the Ohio State signee, was very much an eye-opening experience for Curie.
“When you don’t play against E.J. every day, you go in that lane like you normally do,” Muniz said. “It’s an eye-opening experience for a lot of people. I thought he altered a lot of shots when they did get into the lane.”
The Maroons’ size caused a lot of problems for Curie, and it made a difference in the game.
“We didn’t make open shots, we didn’t rebound,” said Condor coach Michael Oliver. “I think their size caused us some problems inside. Randolph and Liddell were huge for them inside, and we couldn’t stop them in there.”
Oliver gave much credit to West for their game plan.
“They were big and long, and they covered some ground that caused us problems going to the basket,” Oliver said. “They had a great game plan, they forced us to drive, and they had a lot of help in there. They didn’t keep us off the boards, we didn’t keep them off the boards.”
Randolph gave the Maroons an early 2-0 lead with a jumper just over a minute into the game, with a Liddell dunk extending the lead to 4-0. A three from Trevon Hamilton cut the lead to one, and after an exchange of baskets, Curie took its first lead of the game on a lay-in by Elijah Pickens. A Liddell jumper with 21 seconds left in the period gave West an 8-7 lead after one.
Ramean Hinton hit a jumper early in the second to give the Condors a 9-8 lead, but that would be the last time Curie was ahead. Mosby gave the lead right back to West on a jumper, and Randolph extended the lead to 12-9 on another basket, but a three from Damari Nixon tied the game at 12-12. The Maroons then went on a 13-2 run the rest of the quarter, as Randolph, Will Shumpert, Lawrence Brazil III, Mosby all scored to make it 22-12, then a three from Brazil made the halftime score 25-14.
A DaJuan Gordon basket at the start of the third cut the lead to 25-16, but West then extended the lead out to 30-16 on a pair of free throws from Liddell and a three from Mosby. Hinton’s three cut the lead to 11 before the Maroons scored the next five points. West then led by as much as 16 as Liddell, Shumpert and Tommie Williams all took turns scoring, but a three from Pickens got Curie to within 37-28. West closed out the quarter on a 9-4 run to lead 46-32 after three.
Randolph took charge early in the fourth by scoring four of West’s first six points of the quarter to give the Maroons a 52-34 lead before a Gordon basket and a three from Hinton cut the lead to 53-39. The Maroons kept building their lead, with Liddell, Brazil, and Mosby all contributing to make it 66-46 late. The Maroons went on to their 70-48 win to advance to the final.
Hinton and Gordon led the Condors with 10 points each, while Hamilton and Pickens both had seven.
The Maroons, now 33-4, will play Evanston, a 94-82 winner over Rockford East in the first semifinal, for the championship Saturday night with a 7:15 p.m. tip-off.
Muniz knows that his team will be ready to defend its crown against the Wildkits’ challenge.
“These guys have seen every type of team, every type of player you can imagine,” Muniz said. “I credit these guys because they keep striving to want to allow us to coach them. I think we’ve been preparing for this since we walked off this podium last year.”
Colin Feeney also contributed to this story.
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