Bloom’s Jeremy Collins put up a front to hide his emotions.
“If I didn’t want to be so tough, I’d cry,” Collins said after he and his teammates did Friday night what no other SICA East team has done in nearly three years.
They beat Thornwood.
Ninth-ranked Bloom (17-2, 5-0) edged the second-ranked Thunderbirds 52-51 in South Holland, thanks to Jonathan Austin’s rebound basket with 29 seconds left and Darnell Howell’s rebound of a missed shot by Thornwood’s Maurice Montgomery as time ran out.
“It’s huge,” Bloom coach Gary Meyer said. “There’s been a mystique about them the last three years, deservedly so.”
For one night the roles were reversed. Bloom had the Thunderbirds (14-1, 4-1) dazed and confused, snapping their winning streak in the SICA East at 26 games. Thornwood, the three-time defending SICA East champion, had not lost a conference game since Feb. 11, 2000, when Thornridge defeated the Thunderbirds during Eddy Curry’s junior season.
“The conference is wide open, but we’re in control now,” said Collins, who scored seven first-half points and kept Thornwood’s Eric Gray in check in the second half.
Gray scored 16 in the first half but had only four points on free throws in the second to finish with 20. Montgomery had 14.
Bloom took its first lead at 50-49 with 2 minutes 2 seconds to go when Dante Childress hit 1-of-2 free throws.
“We’ve never been in that situation before that late in the game,” Gray said of the one-point deficit.
It showed.
“I saw it in their eyes,” Thornwood coach Bob Curran said of his players. “They were tentative. We were playing to lose.”
Thornwood regained the lead briefly on a basket by Montgomery but went scoreless in the final 1:30.
Behind Gray, Thornwood went 10-for-19 from the field and 6-of-13 on three-pointers in the first half for a 33-27 lead. Bloom went 10-of-15 from the field.
Thornwood struggled against Bloom’s man-to-man defense in the second half, going 5-for-17 from the field.
Bloom, which trailed by seven midway through the third quarter, ended up 19-of-31.
“We kept telling the kids, `Don’t panic and try to make up a six- or seven-point deficit in two possessions,'” Meyer said.
His players patiently chipped away at the Thornwood’s lead. Austin, Kevin Howard and Howell came up with big fourth-quarter baskets. Howard led Bloom with 16 points, and Austin and Howell each added 11.
“Somebody had to beat them,” Howard said. “We put our work boots on and went to work.”
Thornwood will try to rebound Saturday at New Trier.
“We’ve been going through the motions in practices,” Gray said. “That’s something that has to change.”
