Bombs away!: Macomb’s 3-point barrage overwhelms Rockridge, leads to first sectional championship since 2006

CANTON, Ill. — Ian Case didn’t have to concern himself as much with getting in position to snare an offensive rebound as he did with getting back on defense.

There weren’t many shots coming off the rim anyway.

“Every shot that went up, I had to put a three up,” said Case, a 6-foot-7 senior forward on the Macomb boys basketball team. “I knew it was going in tonight.”

The perimeter shots fell at a debilitating rate.

The Bombers buried 9 of 12 3-pointers Friday night at Alice Ingersoll Gymnasium, steadily pulling away from Rockridge to earn a 54-38 victory in the Class 2A Canton Sectional championship game.

It is Macomb’s first sectional championship since 2006 and sets up a matchup with Williamsville at 6 p.m. Monday in the super-sectional at the Bank of Springfield Center in Springfield. The winner advances to the Class 2A final four next weekend in Champaign.

“This just feels amazing,” Case said. “It’s incredible.”

The effort the Bombers generated put to rest any notion there’d be a letdown.

Macomb (28-5) upended state title favorite Peoria Manual in the sectional semifinal, rallying from an 18-point second-half deficit and scoring the final nine points for a 41-40 victory. Recreating that energy was something the Bombers weren’t concerned about.

“There was something different about this group,” Case said. “Against Manual, when we were down 18 points, nobody was arguing with each other. We were all sticking together. We knew we could get through it if we kept pushing and sticking together.

“It’s the same thing against Rockridge. From the start, everybody was together.”

Yet, it didn’t appear that way initially. The Rockets scored the game’s first seven points and forced Macomb coach Jeremy Anderson to burn a timeout less than two minutes into the game. Case ended the run by making a jumper in the middle of the lane.

Then came the 3-point barrage.

Malachi Conley and Drew Watson made back-to-back 3-pointers to start the second quarter, erasing a five-point deficit at the end of the first quarter. Another Conley trey tied the game at 20, and Jake Hobson followed with a pullup jumper from the middle of the lane and Case’s hook shot off an offensive rebound made it 24-20 with three minutes to go in the half.

Macomb never trailed again.

“We were able to move the ball better than we have in the past and we were able to look for each other,” Case said. 

Rockridge kept it a two-possession game for a majority of the third quarter, but Watson nailed a 3-pointer with two minutes remaining to make it a nine-point advantage and his trey with two seconds left in the quarter gave the Bombers a 43-31 lead.

“Drew hit one towards the end of that quarter and everybody got hyped for that,” Case said. “We went crazy. I gave him a hug after he hit that. It was crazy.”

Free throws helped the Bombers put the game on ice. Watson made four consecutive free throws in the game’s final two minutes, and he finished 4 of 4 from 3-point range to lead Macomb with 16 points.

The Bombers will take Saturday off before ramping up preparations to face the Bullets.

“It will let the bodies refuel and reset,” Case said. “And then we get after it.”