BLOOMINGTON — There was an Alex Peacock dunk and some swished 3-pointers from Tyler Seibring. Yet, the biggest crowd pleaser late Saturday night for Normal Community High School was a scramble for a loose ball in the second quarter.
Seemingly everyone on the court dived to the Shirk Center floor in pursuit of the basketball. NCHS came away with it, another sign the top-seeded Ironmen would not be denied in a 64-39 victory over No. 8 seed Rockton Hononegah in a State Farm Holiday Classic large school boys quarterfinal.
The 6-foot-8 Seibring scored 25 points and the 6-7 Peacock added 13 to lead NCHS (9-0) into a 6 p.m. semifinal Monday at Shirk Center against fifth-seeded Edwardsville.
The Ironmen outscored Hononegah 8-0 in the final 3:35 of the second quarter to take a 24-14 halftime lead. Seibring then scored 12 straight points during a 21-13 third quarter that broke it open.
NCHS’ defense forced six Hononegah turnovers in the pivotal second quarter. The Indians had only five field goal attempts in the period, making two.
“They’re the kind of team that you can’t let them run an offense because if they get wide open shots they’re going to knock them down,” NCHS coach Dave Witzig said. “I thought Duane Farrington and David Boyd did a great job on their shooters. They didn’t have an easy time getting good looks.
“We got on the ground for loose balls. We were able to tip them out for some easy layups.”
Witzig said of the scramble, “When you have guys hustling like that, it just kind of sparks everybody. And then Ty got hot in the second half.”
Seibring, an Elon recruit, was 4 of 5 from the field in the third quarter and 2 of 2 from 3-point range.
“They were crashing down hard and Alex Peacock did a great job of kicking it out and all the guards did a great job of kicking it out,” Seibring said.
Six-seven junior Ethan Pogge added eight points for the Ironmen, while Hononegah was led by 6-7 sophomore Max Miller’s eight points.
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