No March Madness: Illinois team holds ball entire first quarter to upset state’s No. 1

There is no shot clock in Illinois high school basketball.

This week, a big underdog used that to its advantage to win a sectional title game.

, is the No. 1 ranked Class 1A team in the state.

They “opened it up” from there, winning 36-31 to advance to Monday’s supersectional game against Aurora Christian. The winner of that game goes to state next weekend, which is the final four in Illinois.

Eastland held the ball for the first 6 minutes, 59 seconds of the game. And saying they “opened it up” from there is only to say that they played very deliberately, sometimes going several minutes in between taking shots.

It worked, as Eastland held Pecatonica to nearly 44 points below its season scoring average of 74.9 points per game. That includes scoring more than 80 points13 times and over 100 twice.

It also didn’t hurt at all that Eastland shot 64 percent from the field. Or that Pecatonica’s leading scorer, point guard Cooper Hoffman, played sporadically in the second half with an injury.

Eastland avenged a loss to Pecatonica in last year’s sectional final, and also lost to it twice during the regular season.

No March Madness: Illinois team holds ball entire first quarter to upset state’s No. 1