Boys Basketball: Foreman closes out Libertyville

Updated: December 17, 2011 10:39PM

In a matter of a few games Foreman is starting to learn what its like to win the close games.

In matter of a couple of days, the Hornets escaped with a couple of key victories.

Foreman won its fourth straight game starting the season and held off Libertyville 55-51 in the Chicago Winter Jamboree and Shootout held at Oakton College in Des Plaines on Saturday night.

“I guess we have to keep winning close games,” Foreman coach Terry Head said. “I don’t think we handled the pressure well in this one. We need to do a better job of taking care of the basketball. We need to keep the lead and make our free throws.

Forman’s quickness and ability managed to build a sizeable 13-point lead of 46-33, that after Eric Patton converted a three-point play of his 11 points.

But, Libertyville (7-2) kept chipping away and closed the lead down within five points. Then widdled it to within three points on Ellis Mathews’ (22 points) three-pointer with 10 seconds remaining.

Terrence Overton made one of two free throws for Foreman with 9.7 seconds to close the door.

Ricky White led the Hornets with 6 of his 18 points down the stretch and Clarence Boyd added 10 off the bench.

“We just worked hard down the stretch,” White said. “We just believed we could do it. We just went hard to the basket and did what we had to do in scoring.”

For the second straight night Libertyville suffered a tough loss and didn’t have enough in the tank to pull a complete comeback.

“We dug a hole in both games this weekend,” Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil said. “We get the lead down to a few points and had a chance again. (Foreman) had a lot to do with that and their quickness wore us down after the game we had on Friday night (Stevenson). We had an emotional game and came out really flat. (Foreman) did nice things and got out after us defensively.”

© 2013 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.