Smooth soph Mike Salter leads Romeoville past Joliet Central

Romeoville’s Mike Salter had an eye-opening freshman year. He was a sharpshooter, deadly from almost anywhere on the court when he was hot.

The shooting prowess is still there, but the sophomore version of Salter is much more tantalizing. The 6-3 guard displayed a terrific all-around floor game on Tuesday in Romeoville, scoring 18 points to lead the Spartans to a 59-56 upset win against No. 21 Joliet Central.

“Last year a lot of people said I was just a shooter,” Salter said. “I spent the summer trying to develop my body and different aspects of my game like getting to the basket and being able to distribute under pressure.”

Romeoville (15-11, 9-5 Southwest Prairie) led by 15 points early in the third quarter but the Steelmen (21-5, 11-3) charged back and tied the game on a steal and bucket from senior Jose Grubbs with 4:10 to play.

Things remained tight for awhile. Salter got to the basket and was fouled with 1:38 to play. His two free-throws but the Spartans ahead by two. Joliet countered with a bucket and then Salter dropped a crafty pass to junior Ibam Padilla, who was charging down the baseline. Padilla scored to put Romeoville up for good.

It’s the biggest win of the season for the Spartans, who have underachieved.

“Early on in the year we were very inconsistent with our defensive effort,” Romeoville coach Marc Howard said. “When you have a lot of talent sometimes they think about one side of the ball. Once they learned they had to put a premium on the defensive side of the ball we became a better basketball team.”

Salter and juniors Kahlil Blakney, DeAndre Heckard and Dontia Johnson are all well-regarded college prospects.

“We had a lot of ups and downs this year,” Salter said. “We have a lot of young players, a lot of inexperience. Everybody is learning.”

Senior Jason Bingham led the Steelmen with 14 points and Grubbs added 11 points and nine rebounds. Joliet Central has now dropped two consecutive games, they lost to Joliet West on Saturday.

Romeoville is peaking at the right time.

“We had a lot of star players on the bench in the fourth quarter but it was great to see everyone wanting to win,” Salter said. “One of the starters even shook off going in because someone else was playing well. Those are the things we want to highlight. It’s not personal, we want to win and change the culture at Romeoville. No one expects us to win anything, we are trying to change that.”

Salter is one of a group of local players that will be featured on Bringing Up Ballers, a new Lifetime channel reality show. Morgan Park freshman Nimari Burnett and his mother are also on the show, which premieres March 1. That’s an interesting wrinkle to the playoffs for Romeoville.

“We haven’t dealt with it really, it has been more focused on his summer team,” Howard said. “I tell Mike and his family that they want to stay focused on academics. He’s a great student and a great basketball player. He has goals. You just want to make sure that whatever you are doing it is not going to hinder your opportunities, just advance them.”