By Michael Wojtychiw

Rebounding, second-chance points and defense.

Those are some of the things that Lincoln Park’s varsity boys basketball team is priding itself on this season.

And the Lions needed all of them as they rallied from a 68-60 deficit with a minute remaining to defeat visiting Curie 72-70, keeping them undefeated through seven games.

And one big reason for that was the play of Larry Harris. The junior had 13 points and nine rebounds in the win, including the game-winning putback off of a missed free throw with 2.8 seconds remaining.

“We’re really a defensive team, so our first conversations are about how we’re going to play defensively,” Harris said. “Once we got to being down two, we coordinated how we’d react to a free-throw miss and how we would be able to get the offensive rebound for a outback,

“I told Jaylen that I’m going to get the offensive rebound. I’d done it before so knew I could do it again. He missed, it went high, and I got it to put back in.”

With a minute left, and the Lions down 68-60, it looked like the Condors were going to hold off the home team and keep it from the ranks of the unbeaten.

But they would miss five-of-seven free throws down the stretch and turn the ball over once, and Jaylen Dickerson and Kaydin Williams hit 3-pointers and Harris hit one-of-two free throws to make it 70-67 with 8.2 seconds left.

But that’s when things got crazy in the Lions’ cozy gym.

After Dickerson drew a foul with 8.2 ticks left, the referees met for conferences at least twice, delaying a game that had already started more than an hour late.

“The delay for that was because the clock is delayed, they were trying to figure out where to put the clock,” Lincoln Park coach Joshua Anderson said.

“At that point, we (the players) were talking about how we could get the lead back,” Harris said. “We were trying to coordinate how we could lock down on defense and get good buckets.”

The conferences lasted more than 10 minutes, with neither team having any directive on what was being discussed. When all was settled, there were still 8.2 seconds remaining on the clock and Dickerson was at the line to shoot two.

He made the first and missed the second, but Harris grabbed the rebound and also split his free throws, making the first, missing the second.

Coincidentally, it was Dickerson who grabbed the rebound in the corner and started to drive down the baseline towards the basket when he was fouled by a Curie player with 5.4 seconds remaining.

Dickerson made the first, but missed the second. With the miss, Harris knew what he had to do: get to the basket for the rebound.

He did that and put in the rebound for a 72-70 lead, setting off a wild celebration on the court. But the game wasn’t over. After the referees cleared the court from the Lincoln Park celebration, there were still just over two seconds remaining.

The Condors couldn’t get a shot off, allowing the Lions to hang on for the win.

“The message to the guys in the fourth quarter was simple: we’re going to fight until the buzzer,” the coach said. “We’re at home, we’re going to fight. If it defensive plays we need to make, we’re going to continue to do that throughout the end of the game.

“My game plan was to have four people crashing the offensive glass and a lot of the details got away from us, but at the end they stayed firm with the original game plan. Rebounding is a skill, that’s how you win games.”

With the win, Lincoln Park stays undefeated in the new look Red Shield Division. That’s included opening wins against Young on the road and also the Condors.

But both Anderson and Harris feel like their squad is ready for every challenge presented to them.

“These guys are overly prepared, they’re well-conditioned, they’re stronger,” Anderson said. “They’re built and battle-tested for whatever is coming for us. I told people this is one of the best teams in the state and I stand by that. This is only game seven and we can only go up and get better.”

“These first couple of games have really helped us,” Harris said. “Now we know that even if we have bad games, we can still win. It helps our confidence a lot. After winning those two games, I think we can beat everyone we play.”

Ahmad Lee led the way for the Lions with 15 points and 8 assists, while Kaydin Williams had 12 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds, Dickerson with 12 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists and Harris 13 points and 9 rebounds.