Wildkits Work Overtime For Rare Road Win

The Titan Dome in Glenview has been nothing but a house of horrors for Evanston’s basketball team over the past decade.

Tuesday night the Wildkits did finally manage to find an escape room.

Freshman Ben Ojala’s 3-point basket with 23 seconds remaining lifted the Kits to a 52-47 victory over Glenbrook South in two overtimes.

It might not have been the ideal start to the 2025 portion of the schedule, which only gets tougher for the remainder of the month of January. But no one in the Evanston program takes winning in the Dome for granted, at least on the varsity level.

The win was Evanston’s second in three games of Central Suburban League South division action and raised their overall record to 13-2. Glenbrook South, which is in rebuilding mode this year, dropped to 11-7 overall and 2-2 in conference play.

“It wasn’t pretty but it’s great to come away with a W (win). It’s been awhile since we’ve been able to win here and we got the result we wanted,” said ETHS head coach Mike Ellis. “We’ll take it.

“I asked our guys (in the locker room) to give themselves a grade on this one and they gave themselves a C plus. They know that in this conference you have to play better than just average to win on the road, and I’m glad they were able to recognize that they have to play better than this.”

Ironically, Evanston prevailed on a game-winning 3-point shot by Ojala after the love affair with 3-point shooting almost cost the winners. They shot just 10-of-32 (31 percent) from beyond the 3-point stripe and, the more the Kits missed, the more tentative they got on offense.

The visitors had a chance to win with the last possession in both the fourth quarter and the first overtime --- and then they got it right, outscoring South 7-4 in the second OT. Theo Rocca led Evanston with 17 points and George Richardson added 11.

South’s only returning starter, Anestis Hadjistamoulou, poured in a game-high 23 points. Normally a deadly free throw shooter, the senior guard missed two chances to give the Titans the lead with 1:23 remaining in the second OT.

Then, after Ojala’s 3-point dagger put ETHS on top at 49-46, Hadjistamoulou went 1-for-3 when he got back to the charity stripe and the Wildkits countered with free throws from Jayden Rodriguez and Rocca to clinch the road win.

Ojala’s 3-point shot with 23 seconds left marked the second straight game that the first-year guard has come through in the clutch with the game on the line. Is it too early to give him a nickname --- maybe Big Shot Ben?

“Both Ben and George hit critical shots for us tonight,” Ellis praised. “We took some tentative shots tonight and we have to shoot with more confidence. We were fortunate that for the two overtime periods, and the last two minutes of regulation, we were mostly playing from in front.

“They’re taking (3-point) shots that they’ve proven they can make. But we can’t just be so one-dimensional and just come down and pop shots. There were stretches of the game that we left the paint wide open and we have to have more balance on offense. We didn’t impose our will in long enough stretches tonight.”

Evanston’s biggest lead was just 5 points at 15-10 at the first quarter break. The host team used a corner 3 from Jake Fuller (12 points) to take a 24-21 edge at the halftime intermission and still led 35-32 after three quarters.

In the last four minutes of regulation, each team only mustered a basket apiece. Vito Rocca’s 3-point basket provided a 38-35 lead for ETHS before Hadjistamoulou finally answered with a 3-pointer of his own two minutes later. Evanston owned the ball for most of the last two minutes but failed to get off a shot before time ran out.

In the first OT, Richardson canned his biggest shot of the young season, a 3-pointer from the corner, for a 43-41 edge. But the Titans again had the answer from Hadjistamoulou, who converted a pair of free throws with 22 seconds left on the clock, and a contested 3-point shot by Theo Rocca bounced right.

Ellis is just glad this is Evanston’s only trip to Glenview this season. The Titans won’t host a regional or sectional tournament this year in postseason play.

“This is the only time we’ll play here this season and we wanted to give it our best effort,” he said. “We did that --- in stretches. We weren’t aggressive enough taking away their actions on defense, but we did still hold them to 47 points in a two overtime game. I can’t fault our effort on defense, but our lapses hurt us on offense.”

Evanston will host Maine South Friday in another CSL South division matchup.