First Place Sports News, 2016
Originally Published March 11, 2016
COLFAX – In the past five meetings, the Ridgeview Mustangs had beaten the LeRoy Panthers all five times, booting them from the county tournament twice and the regional championship once.
But it was LeRoy’s turn to hoist the trophy at Colfax Friday night.
One year removed from a home loss in the regional title game, the Panthers rode a strong second half and a solid team defensive effort to a 42-39 victory at Ridgeview High School—their first ever in a sectional title game.
It helped that they had Matt Chastain.
“We all wanted this extremely bad. We’d lost five straight to this team,” said Chastain – the 6-foot-6 senior who dropped 24 points.
The senior once again rose to the occasion, shredding defenses, burying jumpers and making tough, contested shots in the lane whenever the Panthers needed it.
But the biggest shot came from his freshman point guard.
“Nick Perry knocked down a huge shot and that really got us together,” Chastain said.
With 4:30 left in the game, Perry, who ended behind Chastain with 8 points, got the ball on the left wing and buried a triple to put LeRoy up 36-32.
“I was rushed. Adrenaline was going through my body,” Perry said. “I hit it and I’m glad I had all these fans to back me up on it.”
The LeRoy crowd – which filled about half the Ridgeview High School gymnasium which met capacity 45 minutes prior to tipoff – erupted.
“That was just a huge shot for us,” LeRoy head coach Mark Edmundson said.
Perry is a freshman amongst a sea of experienced Panthers. He handles the point well, but he’d been in a shooting rut. Last game, he was 0-for-5 and he’d missed his last 10 threes.
“In practice I told him he’s our point guard and he’s doing a tremendous job of that, averaging only about one or two turnovers a game. So we aren’t going to change that. But I told him ‘we need you to keep shooting because I know you can,’” Edmundson said. “He just smiled and nodded and said ‘okay.’”
Then he hit. And Ridgeview coach Rodney Kellar recognized that as a turning point.
“(Nick Perry) hit a big three and gave them the four-point lead for the first big cushion that they had,” Kellar said. “That was a big shot at that time, for a freshman to step up when they needed a big shot from someone besides Chastain.”
It was largely an effort from a determined Chastain that led the Panthers to come back from a 21-13 halftime deficit.
“I couldn’t tell you what I told them at halftime. You wouldn’t be able to print it,” Edmundson said of his halftime talk. “It’s the most I’ve ever gotten after a team. I challenged them. And they took it and they ran with it.”
Chastain scored 17 of his 24 in the second half with 10 coming in the fourth quarter. A turning point seemed to come at the 4:10 mark of the third quarter.
Noah Perry had buried a three ball two minutes earlier at the 6-minute mark to pull LeRoy within 23-18.
The Panthers got another possession about a minute and a half later, but Ridgeview’s Drew Jones stole the ball near midcourt and converted a layup underneath a leaping Chastain.
At that point, Chastain took the inbound pass and ran the length of the court to find Teddy Harms in the post with 4:10 left in the third to make it a 25-20 game. And the pedal never left the metal.
At 3:45, Tyler McCormick would extend the Ridgeview lead 27-20. But Chastain was having none of another storybook Ridgeview ending.
He buried a turnaround at 3:26 and caught an alley-oop from Harms to further rile-up the Panther faithful a minute later. The Panthers trailed 27-24.
Austin Zielsdorf answered with a bucket before Chastain got to the post, drew a foul and buried the contested shot despite contact. He’d nail the free throw and LeRoy trailed by just two at 29-27.
Jones hit one of only four Ridgeview threes at the one-minute mark to put the Mustangs up five before a Nick Perry free throw ended the scoring in the third quarter with LeRoy trailing 32-28.
Chastain then hit a jumper at 7:54 in the fourth and once again got to the lane for a layup, a foul and another converted free throw. He gave the Panthers the 33-32 lead at that point. It was bolstered by the Nick Perry three-pointer two and a half minutes later and never relinquished.
“Nick hit that and took some pressure off,” Chastain said. “Then we got together as a team and played great defense.”
After Perry’s three, Chastain got to the line for a pair on the next Panther possession to increase their lead to 38-32 with 3:46 remaining.
But at 3:24, Luke Ward followed the timeless Ridgeview script and buried a three for the Mustangs, igniting the home crowd and cutting the LeRoy lead to 38-35.
“That was his only three and it was a huge one. That’s just what he does,” LeRoy head coach Mark Edmundson said. “We spread them out a bit, but we were fortunate to get them on a poor shooting day and we aren’t complaining.”
Ward scored just three for the Mustangs, shooting 1-of-8 from the arc. As a team, the Panthers held the Mustangs to 4-of-22 from long range as Jones hit the only other three triples to net 11 points.
“Luke made a big three,” Kellar said. “But we just couldn’t find that extra shot to tie it up.”
At 1:40, Ridgeview pulled within one at 38-37 as Austin Zielsdorf got to the lane for a layup and the final two of his team-high 13 points. But Chastain answered by hitting both shots of a one-and-one and LeRoy stayed up 40-37.
Twelve seconds later, Tyler McCormick got the lane for two of his six Mustang points and it was once again a one-point contest with LeRoy up 40-39.
After that Chastain and Perry each split a pair on the free throw line to put the Panthers up 42-39 with 25 seconds left, giving the Mustangs a final look at the basket.
“They just went after the ball like mad men,” Edmundson said of the final defensive surge. “We couldn’t have played that last possession any better.”
With 3.8 seconds, Brett Egan dove at a Mustang pass to tie up the ball for a jump ball.
“That was humungous,” Chasatin said of Egan’s effort. “It was a turning point on that possession.”
Ridgeview still had the ball, but on the ensuing play, Chastain came up with the steal and the game was over. The Panthers got the plaque and their fans flooded the floor, history on their minds.
“We’ve lost in the regional championship many times,” Chastain told TV reporters. “It’s a great feeling to finally get the regional and a sectional and to do it in my senior year with my buddies.”
Harms and Noah Perry each scored five in the game, adding to Nick’s eight. Chastain’s 24 came on 8-of-14 shooting and 8-of-10 free throw shooting.
The 25-5 Panthers earned a spot at Tuesday’s super-sectional at Illinois State University.