Rebels score first basketball win over Meteors since 2000

CALUMET CITY | T.F. South's long nap is over.

After absorbing more than 11 years' worth of on-court frustrations from T.F. North, the Rebels finally awakened their inner beast Friday night. Or maybe a few Meteors inadvertently did so one day earlier.

According to T.F. South senior forward Ira Crawford, a little pregame trash talking took place at Thursday night's matchup between the schools' girls hoops squads. Given North's ongoing dominance in the boys' series, such a thing wouldn't have been surprising.

Crawford, though, waited to respond.

"I was just sitting there relaxing," he said. "But I wanted the ball every time (on Friday). That was my mindset."

Crawford certainly made the most of the chances he did get. By scoring a game-high 23 points on 10-of-12 shooting and grabbing nine rebounds, Crawford was the catalyst for the Rebels in their 57-52 South Suburban Blue victory.

The win was South's first against its District 215 sister school since November 2000.

"My hat's off to South," Meteors coach Tim Bankston said. "They wanted it more and they deserved it. (Crawford) outplayed us down low."

"We've been talking to him about being more assertive on both ends of the floor," Rebels coach John O'Rourke said of Crawford. "Ira's one of our leaders, and he was doing what a senior should do. He stepped up whenever things were going wrong."

Actually, that didn't happen very much for South (13-7, 6-3), which never trailed after the midway point of the second period. North (9-14, 5-5) did create a tie at 30 early in the third quarter, but the Rebels answered with a 10-3 run that included two Crawford baskets, plus one apiece from Robert Ryan, Armon Stewart and Paul Pierce.

Pierce sat the majority of the opening half after picking up two fouls in the game's first three minutes. He wound up with just two points, but reserves Mychelle Bullock and Darrell Wright compensated for his absence with a combined 13 points.

Bullock's 3-pointer at the start of the fourth quarter ballooned South's advantage to 10 points and the Meteors never got closer than the final score.

"We had momentum going and I wanted to bury them," Bullock said.

For the second week in a row on the road, the Rebels played in front of a large fan contingent, who Bullock said was "making us a lot more ready to play." Crawford agreed, saying he "felt real confident coming into this game."

Ashanti Randolph tallied a team-best 18 points for North before fouling out.