Oak Lawn boys basketball coach Jason Rhodes knew what he was doing when he renewed the series with Jones of the Public League this season.
It wasn’t so much to get a win — though a win was gotten on Feb. 14 in the Spartan Gym, by a 52-47 margin – but to play a team he knew would play hard.
The Eagles gave the Spartans all they could handle, trading the lead a quartet of times until Oak Lawn’s 15-0 run, capped by Donte Montgomery’s only 3-pointer, ending the third quarter and starting the fourth. That outburst put the Spartans eight points ahead.
The 49-41 lead with 3:49 left held up even after Jones standout Nathan Song’s eighth and final 3-pointer forced Rhodes to keep his usual five in just a bit longer than he preferred. But a win is a win, and Oak Lawn’s 21st against eight setbacks was a comfortable pillow to sleep on.
It was also a good reminder that Public League teams play hard. Oak Lawn’s next chance to see one comes if it gets by host Riverside-Brookfield in the 4A regional semifinal on Feb. 26, for surely Public League champ Kenwood, a magnitude better than Jones, will be waiting for them two nights later.
“It kind of sets the tone because the aggressiveness is kind of similar,” Montgomery said. “It was good to face a CPS school to kind of prepare for the second round.”
The Hinsdale Central Sectional is loaded. The Spartans only grabbed the No. 9 seed even with 20 wins on seeding day. Kenwood is No. 1.
“I still don’t think we’ve hit our ceiling, which is a good thing,” Rhodes said. “We’ll have games where we play incredibly well, like Brother Rice and Evergreen Park, and then games like last Tuesday at Shepard, where we don’t play well.
“I knew it was going to be a difficult game,” Rhodes said of Jones. “They gave us everything we could handle.”
It was senior night, so Rhodes started four seniors who usually see little action, plus Montgomery.
“They hit a few shots we weren’t expecting,” Montgomery said of the Eagles (13-12).
“I think we could have come out with more energy,” said Jack Dempsey, who scored 11 of his 14 points in the second half, of the regulars. “Coulda played better for the guys who haven’t seen the floor a lot. But we’ll take a win.”
Jones extended its lead to 38-31 courtesy of the long-range accuracy of Song (24 points). Rhodes noted, ”We put three different ball-screen defenses on him and finally did a decent job at the tail end.”
Montgomery had a couple of key assists to go with a team-high 20 points and sharing, with Dempsey and Marc Harvey,the team lead with eight rebounds each.
Rhodes has guided the Spartans to five straight 20-win post-COVID seasons, and an 11-5 record before the world shut down in the 2019-20 season. Montgomery, a key part of the last three campaigns, sees an obvious common denominator.
“The mastermind of coach Rhodes,” Montgomery said. “He pours his heart out every day, even when he’s not in the gym. He’s been building this up since he got here, and it’s starting to pay off now.”
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