Valiant effort by Chargers falls just short in regional semifinal loss to state-ranked Bullets

PITTSFIELD, Ill. — The slight fadeaway. The tired legs from playing every minute of the game. Any number of factors could have contributed to the shot coming up just short. 

While the outcome was not what Tre Neiderman or the Illini West boys basketball team wanted, Neiderman accepted the result.

“The fact that the last one comes up short, that’s a little heartbreaking, but you can’t do anything about it,” Neiderman said.

Neiderman’s potential game-tying 3-pointer with 15 seconds left in Wednesday’s Class 2A Pittsfield Regional semifinal game against state-ranked Williamsville bounced high off the front of the rim and did not fall, leading to a foul and free throws on the other end and a 47-43 Williamsville victory at Voshall Gymnasium.

“The ball goes in sometimes, and it doesn’t go in sometimes,” Neiderman said. “That’s just how it goes.”

After two Blake Shoufler free throws gave the Bullets — the No. 7-ranked team in the final Associated Press Class 2A regular-season state poll — a 44-41 lead with 37 seconds left, Chargers coach Blaize Kimmell called timeout with 24.7 seconds left to draw up a play the Chargers had not run all season.

Neiderman inbounded the ball from in front of the Chargers bench to Ethan Carlisle, who passed it to Brennan Grotts at the top of the key. Neiderman ran from the right block to the left wing off of an screen set by Stephen Sparks and Wesley Robertson at the left elbow. 

Neiderman caught Grotts’ pass on the run, turned and fired up the three, but Shoufler fought through the screen to contest the shot. Neiderman faded slightly to his left as he let the three fly. 

“I faded away a little bit when I maybe shouldn’t have,” Neiderman said.

The ball bounced high off the front of the rim, and Williamsville’s Jackson Sanders grabbed the rebound and threw an outlet pass to Brayden Saling, who was fouled by Sparks with nine seconds left. Saling made both free throws to put the game out of reach.

Neiderman and the other four Illini West starters had played every second of the game up to that point. Kimmell wondered if some rest would have benefitted Neiderman on that final shot, but Kimmell said the game flow determined how he used — or in this case, did not use — his bench. Only when Sparks fouled out with 0.6 seconds left did Kimmell make a substitution.

“If it would have just gotten over the rim, and maybe that’s my fault,” Kimmell said. “I didn’t sub once in this game. I kept the ponies out there.

“I just read the ponies. I thought the game was a little too quick for our boy Wes Smith. I thought with Myles (Wear), that pressure might get to him a little bit. I called some timeouts to get us some breaks. I read the ponies. I rode them, and I wouldn’t change that at all. Did we maybe get a little gassed at the end? Maybe, but they didn’t sub much either.”

After the Bullets scored 14 of the game’s first 16 points, the Chargers immediately ripped off a 10-0 run to get within striking distance. While Illini West never took the lead, the seventh-seeded Chargers (23-9) got within a point of Williamsville twice in the fourth quarter, once on a Carlisle layup with 5:10 left and again on a Robertson layin with 37 seconds left. Robertson led all scorers with 19 points, nine of which came in the fourth quarter.

“I challenged him,” Kimmell said. “I said, ‘No more misses. You go be a dang man and score the ball.’ He did that and more against some really good defense. 

“I wanted him to go score the ball. I told him, ‘We can’t have you walking around on the perimeter. Go take the ball to the rack.’”

Before the final 3-point attempt of his career came up no more than an inch short, Neiderman made a triple in every quarter to rack up 12 points. His 3-pointer from the left corner on an assist from Robertson cut the Bullets’ lead in half to 42-39 with 1:20 left.

“We can’t get mad at Tre because he did a lot for us during the whole game and the whole season,” Robertson said. “He’s just a great player.”

The top-seeded Bullets (28-3) will face No. 5 seed Quincy Notre Dame in Friday’s regional championship game, which will tip off at 7 p.m.

“They don’t call it survive and advance for no reason,” Williamsville coach Nick Beard said. “We knew they were going to give us their best shot. We punched early, but they got right back up, punched back and gave us everything we wanted.”