Morton's Elabed scores career-high 21 points to beat Wheeler

UNION TOWNSHIP | Ben Chinn was looking anywhere for a spark after a humbling weekend saw his Morton boys basketball team drop close games to Gavit and Whiting.

He found it in Rayan Elabed.

The sophomore scored a career-high 21 points in his first varsity start and the Governors held off a furious Wheeler rally to knock off the Bearcats 73-63 on Thursday night.

"No one has any idea how talented this kid is," Chinn said. "That wasn't just a good performance out there; that was a dominant performance."

Elabed went to the basket continuously throughout the game, scoring 12 of his team-high 21 points in the first half. The sophomore converted layups, connected on a 3-pointer and took advantage of trips to the free-throw line all night long.

"When Coach (Chinn) told me I was starting, I knew that I had to take advantage," Elabed said. "It feels good to be a sophomore starter on varsity. I knew that I had to make that count."

The Governors (10-7) recovered from a slow start to take their first lead of the game in the third quarter when Jason Griffin scored seven consecutive points. The senior knocked down a wide-open 3-pointer from the top of the key and then forced a steal on Wheeler's next possession that resulted in a layup off a behind-the-back pass from Vernon Brooks. Griffin then added two free throws and Morton led 42-35.

"I had to step up for my team after coming out slow in the first half," Griffin said. "It's like they were daring me to shoot (the 3-pointer). I had to make them pay for that."

Despite Elabed and Griffin scoring at will in the third quarter, the Bearcats (10-7) were not finished. Christian Sikoski scored 12 points to start the fourth quarter and Wheeler took a 53-52 lead with 5:34 remaining. Morton then closed out the game on a 21-10 run, with a majority of the points coming from the charity stripe. The Governors were 18-of-22 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter.

"I'm very proud of the way this team battled back tonight and they never quit," Wheeler coach Tom Johnson said. "I told that that sometimes you spend so much energy coming back, that you just don't have it at the end. Now we need to find a way to keep that momentum going and to keep coming at them."

Sikoski led the Bearcats with a game-high 25 points while Kevin Barnes added 17 points and three 3-pointers.

"I've been coaching for 18 years and I've never had a team that's made more strides in a season than this team has," Johnson said. "I told the guys that like a free safety in football after getting burned, they have to have a short memory now so we can move on to the next game."