From the first day of practice, Jayden Tyler knew Homewood-Flossmoor was going to state.
But the junior point guard also knew it wouldn’t be easy.
“We’ve been ring chasing every day,” Tyler said as the celebration began after Monday night’s instant classic. “We knew it would be hard, but we’re going downstate — for real, for real.”
It certainly wasn’t easy, either. The Vikings ended up sweating out an exhilarating 60-58 victory over Curie to win the Class 4A UIC Supersectional at Credit Union 1 Arena in Chicago.
Tyler finished with 18 points, including a stretch in the fourth quarter where he had 10 points, a rebound, a steal and a blocked shot as H-F (31-4) went on an 18-2 run to turn a 46-38 deficit into a 56-48 lead.
Gianni Cobb scored 22 points to lead the Vikings, who will play at 3:45 p.m. Friday in the state semifinals at the State Farm Center in Champaign against New Trier (29-7), a 65-41 winner over Glenbard North.
Gakobie McNeal came off the bench to pull down seven rebounds, including six in the second half. That was huge for H-F as Curie (31-3) held a 14-4 rebounding advantage in the first half.
It’s the fourth trip to the state finals for the Vikings and first since 2004, when they finished second in the state in Class AA.
Afterward, following the final buzzer, Tyler earned praised from coach Jamere Dismukes.
“Without him, I don’t think we would be in this position right now,” Dismukes said. “My hat is off to Jayden and my hat is off to Gakobie. They were tearing it up in the second half.”
And even though H-F owned an eight-point lead with 58 seconds left, the game was not over.
After a frenetic series of events, the score was tied 58-58. The Columbia-bound Cobb hit two free throws with 16 seconds left. Carson Brownfield then hugged the last rebound after an errant shot.
“Making history is fun and winning is always fun,” Brownfield said. “And winning with my brothers is just even better. Winning with my friends — guys I grew up with.
“Making our dreams come true is great.”
For seven quarters, Credit Union 1 Arena was far from great for the Vikings, who lost 77-47 in December to Gonzaga and trailed 44-38 Monday entering the fourth quarter.
Part of that was thanks to a controversial buzzer-beating shot by Curie’s Mason Minor.
“We looked at ourselves in the mirror at halftime because our rebounding was not good,” Tyler said, citing some numbers. “They had nine offensive rebounds and scored seven times. We had to come out in the second half and rebound and get offensive rebounds.
“This feels a lot better than the first time we were here.”
Monday night had all the makings of a state championship game.
Since Jan. 3, H-F and Curie have dominated the top spots in the Class 4A Associated Press state poll. The Vikings were No. 1 on Jan. 17, Jan. 31 and Feb. 7 before falling back to No. 2 in the final poll Feb. 14 after a 65-63 loss to Bolingbrook at home to close out the regular season.
Brownfield felt that loss, plus a 68-66 win in overtime over Joliet West in the Rich Township Sectional semifinal, helped the Vikings regain their focus.
“Those are wake-up calls,” he said. “We knew we had to get back in the gym and had a lot to work on. We just bounced back and went into practice, and focused on us and nobody else.”
Cobb opened the supersectional scoring 10 points in the first quarter and cooled off a little. But he also credited Tyler for taking over from there.
“They were face guarding me, and I trusted my team to take it to them,” Cobb said. “I told Jayden to keep hooping, and it’s going to come. And it happened.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
