East Basketball came up with a clutch win against the Plainfield South Cougars last Friday, Feb. 7, in a record-setting overtime thriller 72-79 at Plainfield East.
The high-scoring conference affair was led by East’s sophomore KJ Miller, with 33 points and a school record 8-12 from three-point land.
“It just came to me, everybody was moving the ball, and I was the hot hand, so my teammates were finding me,” said Miller.
The Cougars leading scorer was Brilan Townsend with 18 points, eight coming in overtime.
The contest was close all throughout. In the first half, neither team was able to establish a double-digit lead. South went to the locker room at halftime with a six point advantage.
High intensity from both schools was sparked from their previous meeting Dec. 10, when the Bengals fell to the Cougars 64-36 at Plainfield South.
“I needed to get a get back,” said Leslie Pobee, junior, “we lost last time, and we needed to get back for our seniors too because this is our last Friday home game.”
Pobee showed his effort by giving the Bengals four blocks as well as 10 rebounds, five coming on the offensive side of the floor.
Senior Kobe Jordan took advantage of the situation in the second half with an outburst of 16 points, bringing his game totals to 24 points, 12 rebounds.
“My mindset going into every game is just be aggressive,” said Jordan, “taking what the defense gives me, today I was lucky enough to get to the free throw line a lot, so I just capitalized off that.”
Jordan sank two clutch free throws with 1:08 remaining in regulation in order to cut the deficit to two points; however, Townsend split a pair of free throws on the other end of the court to push the lead back to three.
After a timeout called by Head Coach Kanwer Sarkaria with 4.7 seconds left, Miller capped off his historic night with a game-tying three to send it to overtime after a score of 59-59.
“The play, it kind of got scrambled,” said Miller, “I got open, and I had an open rhythm shot, I took it, and it went in.”
With the help of the Orange Crush student section, the Bengals were able to coast to a seven point victory.
“The energy of the student section was actually big today,” said Pobee.
With the season nearing end, a win against conference rival Plainfield South makes the Bengals one big step closer to their playoff hopes after the regular season.
