Simeon freshman AJ Casey’s free throws beat Homewood-Flossmoor

SHARE Simeon freshman AJ Casey’s free throws beat Homewood-Flossmoor
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Simeon’s Antonio Reeves (3) spins off Homewood-Flossmoor’s Jaylen Thompson (3). Worsom Robinson/For the Sun-Times.

Simeon freshman AJ Casey looked confident and assured as he stepped to the free throw line to try and give the struggling Wolverines a much-needed victory.

Casey has a lofty national ranking and a USA Basketball pedigree, but the first month of the season has been brutal for Simeon, so the 6-9 freshman phenom had to feel the extra pressure with his team leading by one point and 11 seconds to play.

“Of course my heart was racing a little bit but I just concentrated,” Casey said. “I just had to make the free throws.”

Casey drained them both. Homewood-Flossmoor had a chance to tie but couldn’t make a three at the buzzer and the host Wolverines won 57-54 on Friday.

Casey is the state’s top ranked freshman and is expected to be Simeon’s next major star. This was his first signature moment.

“We are starting to regroup as a team and I wanted to do anything to get the team a win,” Casey said. “It feels pretty great and I think it will lead to other big things for us.”

Casey sat the entire second quarter with foul trouble and finished with seven points and three rebounds. Senior Antonio Reeves led the Wolverines (3-6) with 17 points and four rebounds.

Senior Kejuan Clements added 11 points and seven rebounds.

“It was a total team effort,” Simeon coach Robert Smith said. “Once we understand who we are as a team we are going to be better. I think in the second half we kind of found some things out. We ran our offense, got easy baskets and got people into a position to succeed.”

H-F (5-3) led by six at halftime. The momentum slowly turned Simeon’s way in the second half.

“To start the second half we got a few stops in a row and everyone got into the game defensively,” Clements said.

Jeremiah Stamps, Simeon’s 6-7 center, didn’t play much last season but has been a key contributor this season. The Vikings have two of the area’s strongest and most athletic post players, Issac Stanback (13 points, seven rebounds) and RJ Ogom (16 points, eight rebounds).

Stamps did an excellent job making things difficult for Ogom and Stanback.

“They are tough,” Stamps said. “I just battled it out. We’ve been struggling and I knew I had to do better to get us a win.”

Senior Oscar Parrish scored 11 for the No. 12 Vikings, whose only losses this season are to No. 2 Bloom.

H-F is the first suburban public school to ever play at Simeon.

“Anytime you get an opportunity to come here and play, especially as a suburban team, you have to jump on it,” H-F coach Marc Condotti said. “We’ve been looking forward to this game since we scheduled it. It’s a great test for us, that is all it is. It would have been great to win but there is no better way to test yourself than against the best team in the state for the past ten years.”

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