Terrell Farmby and the Evanston Township Wildkits defeated Central Suburban South rival New Trier Trevians 55-52 in overtime Friday night at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Farmby, a forward for the Wildkits, scored a team-best 14 points. Evanston coach Mike Ellis noted Farmby’s intensity Friday night.
“He wasn’t afraid to fail,” Ellis said. “He’s got everything down that we expect of him. He came out and was our offense for the start of the game. The way he played our other guys were energized and played off of that.”
Farmby credited his performance to the fierce rivalry between the two schools.
“The rivalry’s been strong for I don’t know how long,” Farmby said following the game. “At this stage and being the home team, it was a really big win.”
The play of Evanston center Randy Ollie, who had 8 points, didn’t go unnoticed.
“He came to play,” Farmby said. “He really picked up the slack for me [in the second quarter].”
The Wildkits (15-9, 5-4) led the Trevians well into the fourth quarter, but an uninspired performance by Evanston late in the game opened up an opportunity for New Trier to stage a last-ditch comeback. The No. 12 Trevians (18-5, 7-2) were up for the challenge.
Breakout performances by seniors Austin Angel (11 points) and Connor Boehm (11 points) in the fourth quarter helped New Trier to erase a 12-point lead. But the real miracle worker was junior Reid Berman, whose 3-pointer with 13 seconds left forced overtime.
Berman downplayed the importance of his game-changing 3-pointer.
“I just remember getting a couple of extra passes and then shooting it,” Berman said. “Nothing more.”
New Trier coach Scott Fricke was happy to see his team score 21 points in the fourth quarter and go to extra time.
“A lot of things went wrong for us tonight,” he said. “But we were still able to come back and force an overtime. We still had a lot of opportunities to win the game.”
Farmby says his team stayed focused after the Trevians’ rally.
“We told each other, ‘we’ve still got the game,’” Farmby said.
Leonard Garron’s rebound early in overtime put the Wildkits in the lead and they never looked back. Garron had 10 points on the night. Angel’s hail-Mary 3-point try at the buzzer missed and the entire Evanston student section rushed the court in celebration.
Berman acknowledged the missteps the Trevians’ made over the course of the game.
“We made some bad plays, I had a bunch of turnovers, we had some dumb fouls,” Berman said. “This isn’t a game we should lose, but we did. We’ve got to come back next time.”
Ellis calls the final minutes of the final period a high-point of the season.
“The last stretch of that overtime was some of the better close-out minutes we’ve had all season,” he said.
Despite the exciting win over a higher-ranked rival, Ellis knows the celebrating will come to an end that evening.
“We can get a lot better,” Ellis said. “This isn’t the time of year to celebrate a win. It’s a rival game but it’s all about getting better and getting hot at the right time. I just want to make sure our kids stay hungry.”
Both teams resume play on Feb. 17 as Evanston is at Glenbrook South and New Trier travels to Maine South.
Leah Hendrickson 