‘We stay locked in’: Blue Devils handle foul trouble with right approach as Wires, Thomas lead way to semifinal victory

COLLINSVILLE, Ill. — When a timeout was called midway through the third quarter Saturday night, Kamren Wires gathered his Quincy High School boys basketball teammates and delivered an important message.

Let it go, he told them.

“He brought all the guys in and was like, ‘Hey, quit complaining about fouls. Quit whining to the officials. Let’s just play our game,’” Quincy coach Andy Douglas said. “That type of leadership is what you need in situations like that, and I thought the guys really rallied around that.”

Although the Blue Devils held a 10-point lead over Belleville Althoff with 3:19 to play in the third quarter in the semifinals of the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic, the foul trouble the Blue Devils found themselves in and the frustration it created could have derailed almost anyone.

But not this group.

Keshaun Thomas recorded a double-double of 24 points and 13 rebounds and Wires’ defensive intensity perfectly accented his 10-point output in a 61-50 victory at Vergil Fletcher Gym.

“It was pretty big for people to step up when some pretty big players were on the bench,” Thomas said after senior guards Bradley Longcor III and Dom Clay were limited to 21 and 20 minutes, respectively, due to foul trouble. “We had people come in and play valuable minutes. That was a big part of the game.

“It definitely shows maturity. We haven’t seen that all year, and for those guys to be able to step up and play a big role in that game and close that game out meant a lot for us.”

The Blue Devils (12-0) will face The Woodlands Christian (Texas) at 8 p.m. Sunday in the championship game. This is Quincy’s third consecutive championship game appearance as it seeks its first holiday tournament title since 1997.

The Woodlands features 6-foot-6 senior forward Howie Keene, the son of former Collinsville All-American and University of Illinois sharpshooter Richard Keene who has signed with Montana State.

“They’re big,” Thomas said. “And they have some shooters.”

And the Blue Devils have all day to prepare for that.

Or all day to get distracted.

“We stay locked in,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be a long day ahead of us. We have to leave the hotel, so we’ll probably hit up a mall, get something to eat and go get a walkthrough. But we have to be locked in the whole time, not joke around all day, not take the day as an off day.

“We just have to lock in and stay locked in.”

Wires and Thomas did their part of making sure that was the case Saturday night.

Quincy opened the day with a 67-44 victory over O’Fallon in the tournament quarterfinals in which it blistered the nets from the start. The Blue Devils made their first six shots and nine of their first 12 attempts, building a 21-11 lead by the end of the first quarter.

A stretch of five consecutive scoring possessions in the second quarter stretched the advantage to 18 points in the second quarter, and the Panthers never mounted a serious challenge. Longcor and Thomas had 16 points apiece.

“We told ourselves we had to keep the same energy going into the next game,” Thomas said.

That wasn’t as easy when the fouls mounted.

Clay picked up two fouls in the game’s first four minutes, while Longcor picked up his second with 4.2 seconds remaining in the first quarter when called for an offensive foul. Longcor, the Blue Devils’ leading scorer, committed his third foul with 3:37 remaining in the first half with the game tied at 19.

Wires and Thomas combined for eight consecutive points to give Quincy a 27-25 halftime edge.

“You play in tournaments like this to see what your team’s about and see how they handle adversity,” Douglas said. “We hadn’t faced a ton of it up until that point, and they did a really good job of handling it for the most part.

“Fighting through calls that didn’t go our way — not necessarily bad calls, just ones that didn’t go our way — and guys in foul trouble, we had to play through quite a bit.”

Still, they managed. The Blue Devils outscored the Crusaders 14-6 over the first 4:41 of the third quarter to take control and never gave Althoff a true window to challenge.

Bryden Gryzmala, the Crusaders’ high-scoring point guard, finished with 19 points, but he went 7 of 17 from the field and had no assists as Wires clamped down on him. Althoff’s Dierre Hill Jr.,, the all-state running back who has signed with Oregon, had 11 points, but went 4 of 15 from the field and 0 of 8 from 3-point range.

“I thought Kamren was unbelievable on the ball tonight,” Douglas said. “Kam made it extremely difficult on (Gryzmala) to bring it up the floor and get any uncontested shot off.”

The Crusaders shot just 30.4 percent from the field and 19.2 percent from 3-point range.

“We had to pick the speed up, especially with guys sitting out,” Thomas said. “Defensively, we really locked in on key players.”

That will need to continue.

“Locked in all the time,” Thomas said. “That’s our focus.”