By Dennis Bowling

On paper, Peotone Coach Ron Oloffson and the Blue Devils should have been able to beat struggling Coal City (7-12), but the Coalers’ defense shut down the Blue Devil senior standout Miles Heflin and contained the very promising sophomore Brandon Weiss on January 17.

For the night, the outstanding Heflin did not score a basket, although he did have 14 rebounds. The highly touted Weiss finished with 9 points, as the Coalers beat the Blue Devils, 46-39, in Illinois Central Eight Conference play in Peotone.

“In three of the last four games we’ve played, we have just not started that well,” said an upset Oloffson. “They were able to take away Miles (Heflin) and Brandon (Weiss), and we were not able to adjust to that. This is a game we should have won.”

“We missed a lot of shots,” he continued, “and have to cut down on our turnovers.”

The Blue Devils’ bright spots included Peotone Lucas Gesswein (9 points, 5 rebounds), who, late in the fourth quarter, had a pair of baskets, but it was just not enough.

“We should have come out with more energy,” he said. “Our offense was not working.”

Senior Wil Graffeo (11 points, 2 steals) made a late pair of free throws, but the team just ran out of time.

By halftime, Coal City had a 26-14 lead. In the third quarter, the Coalers owned a 32-19 advantage. A Graffeo three-point play cut the Coalers advantage to 32-22. Colin Emsweller made consecutive baskets, which narrowed the Coal City margin to 32-26. Weiss, attempting to make a trey, was fouled, then made three free throws, which closed the gap to 34-29.

Even though the Blue Devils rallied, outscoring the Coalers by a 10-2 count, Coal City still had a 34-29 lead at the close of the stanza.

Peotone junior Emsweller finished with 8 points, and remarked, “We were able to beat them in our last game. We just came out over-confident, and some of our shots were not falling.”

Early in the fourth stanza, Coal City had a 34-31 advantage. After that the Blue Devils’ offense went ice cold, and the Coalers outscored Peotone by a 9-0 count, holding a 43-31 lead, which led to the win.

Peotone (9-7, 4-2) will travel to Momence on January 27 at 7 p.m.

In the junior varsity contest, the Coalers beat the Blue Devils, 47-42. Ruben Velasco led with 17 points, Chase Rivera had seven, while Logan Mather finished with six points for the Blue Devils.