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player ready...Blaise Meredith held his breath, knowing he’d done his part.
Then he exhaled.
Meredith’s spectacular block in the last minute Tuesday momentarily preserved Neuqua Valley’s lead.
When Chicago Christian’s Malik Parker missed a 3-pointer as time expired, Meredith and the Wildcats held on for a 66-64 win at the East Aurora Holiday Tournament.
“He got a pretty good look,” said Meredith, Neuqua’s senior guard. “I was holding my breath.”
He wasn’t alone. Parker, a slippery-quick senior guard, was spectacular in leading Chicago Christian (5-6) back from 14 down in the second half. He had 28 points with 5-for-8 shooting from 3-point range.
Parker shook loose of Meredith to get a clean look from the top of the key in the closing seconds.
“I can’t believe he missed,” Neuqua coach Todd Sutton said. “We haven’t seen a better player than Parker this year.”
Connor Gentry scored 15 points, Jonathan Tan added 12 and Noah Herdman had nine for Neuqua (6-5), which bounced back from a tournament-opening loss to Joliet Catholic.
The Wildcats regained the lead for good on Alex Filo’s putback basket with 1:25 left.
Meredith, Neuqua’s leading scorer, was quiet offensively, scoring just eight points on 2-for-6 shooting.
He made the play of the game, though.
When Parker stole the ball from Meredith with Neuqua leading 66-64 in the last minute, Meredith chased him down and soared to reject the smaller guard from behind at the rim.
“He’s shorter, so you know where the ball is going to be. You just have to make sure he doesn’t pump-fake you,” said Meredith, who drew a charge earlier in the fourth quarter. “You’ve just got to time it up. As soon as you see him go up you make a play.”
It was a play all right.
“That’s a game-changer,” Sutton said. “Those are huge plays taking points off the board.”
If Meredith was the hero late, Gentry was a most unlikely shooting star before then.
The muscular 6-foot-3 senior forward is Neuqua’s second-leading rebounder, but had attempted just five 3-point shots coming into the week.
Gentry, though, knocked down three 3-pointers during the Wildcats’ 20-4 run that spanned the end of the second quarter and beginning of the third that nudged Neuqua ahead 45-31.
The Wildcats’ 60 points were a season high, keyed by 50-percent shooting and 9-for-21 from beyond the arc.
“I’ve hit one (3-pointer) in a couple games, but that was probably my best game so far,” Gentry said. “I’m always the one that works hard. It’s nice to have that reward.”
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Sutton wasn’t surprised to see it.
“Connor is pretty skilled — he just doesn’t get many shots,” Sutton said. “He can knock them down. He does it all the time in practice. He got some good looks and he was feeling it.”
Joshua Welge is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.