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Panthers stun No. 1
Pekn takes down SEISC North leader Hillcrest Academy
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
PACKWOOD - Pekin boys basketball pulled off what no other Southeast Iowa Super Conference North team could manage this season. The Panthers knocked off Hillcrest Academy 54-42, snapping the Ravens’ 13-0 start to conference play.
Pekin pushes in the third and fourth quarters outlasted the Ravens talented squad. The Panthers - who avenged its 57-49 loss to Hillcrest on Dec. 19 - won the third quarter 15-5, relying on suffocating defense that turned into easy offense. The Panthers held the Ravens to just one field goal for the first 5:30 of the period and took a 10 point lead.
“Terrific job (with) team defense in the second half, especially, just lights out.” Pekin coach John Swanson said. “A lot of their buckets came some of our miscues getting beat in the full court, but great effort across the board.”
Pekin’s lead grew to 12 with just 4:03 to play. On the ropes, the Ravens made a push, going on a 6-0 run to make it 44-40 Pekin with 1:53 left.
After calling a timeout, Pekin made the game-sealing play when Cole Millikin slipped away from his assignment, caught long pass from Nolan Glick and finished through contact to push the Panthers lead back to seven.
“We’ve just got to make sure we do the little things right,” Millkin said. “Because if we do those things right, they’ll stack up and they’ll create big things like this... So if we keep on doing that, who knows what we can go do.”
Pekin outscored Hillcrest 7-2 after Millkin knocked home the free throw. Henry Adam swatted a layup that would’ve made it a five-point game and the Panthers made key free throws to finish off their eighth straight win.
Millikin led Pekin with 19 points. The Panthers leading scorer was everything they needed him to be, knocking down four 3-pointers early before scoring his final seven points from inside the arc.
“He’s used to playing in big games, and his time’s running out here down the stretch (with) him being a senior,” Swanson said of Millikin. “So he just doesn’t want to lose. He likes winning, but he hates losing and he came out tonight, big game, showed up and made plays when we needed him.”
Behind him, a balanced Pekin outfit found the right players on offense and spread the wealth. Five players scored at least five points. Adam finished with seven, while Alijah Brock and Glick each scored six.
“We had some adversity early in the game with guys picking up some early fouls, and had to manage that,” Swanson said. “I thought our bench guys gave us some great minutes and I was really happy with our bench in general.”
Rowan Miller and Kale Bailey co-led Hillcrest with 11 points each. Gibson Scott was also in double figures with 10, while Jude Ours and Lincoln Miller each had four.
Pekin looked jumped out to a big lead early, firing up the home crowd with an 8-2 start. Hillcrest answered right back by finishing the quarter on an 11-3 run with the three points for Pekin coming from a buzzer beater by Riley Smith.
The two teams traded buckets and stops in the second. The game flowed between a track meet and a physical battle inside, which Pekin proved to be up for throughout the 32 minutes.
“They’re a physical team and we did not respond real well,” Hillcrest coach Stephen Bender said. “We tried to match their physicality in the second half because we didn’t do a good job in the first half, and I thought we did a better job defensively in the start of the third quarter, but unfortunately we didn’t score. So, when we’re not scoring, if you get stops it doesn’t really matter.”
Pekin will look to extend its winning streak to nine games when it hosts English Valleys on Thursday. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
“I’m still hungry for more,” Millikin said. “I want to keep getting to double digits and see how far we can make that (win) streak keep going.”
