McLean Falters Down Stretch, Falls to Westfield 55-41 in Regional Semifinals

Kevin Roller knows that at some point, expectations vanish and the only thing a team can do is play its hardest and hope for the best. When McLean came up short against Westfield in the Northern Region boys basketball semifinals on Saturday night, the typically stoic coach let his emotions show, but there was certainly no shame after concluding the most successful season in school history.

Gordon Rogo scored a game-high 16 points for the Highlanders, but Westfield's Zach Elcano limited McLean's leading scorer, Thomas Van Wazer, to a season-low two points in the 55-41 loss.

Roller was expecting to see a different version of the Bulldogs compared to the teams' previous meeting in December, a 50-48 win for McLean, but he admitted not much had changed. Westfield was simply the better of two evenly matched teams this time around.

"Actually not a whole lot [was different]," Roller said. "They did what we knew they could do well."

That included working the ball inside to the 6-foot-11 Elcano, who finished with 13 points, and outside to Julius Rosa, who led the Bulldogs with 14 points and knocked down three 3-pointers.

Neither team created any momentum in the first half as Westfield clung to a two point lead heading into the break. Rosa scored eight of his points during an 11-0 run early in the third quarter to give the Bulldogs a nine point lead, but McLean responded with a push of its own to get within a point. Rogo bookended the run with buckets and Kevin Lastova connected from long range on consecutive possessions in between.

That would be the closest the Highlanders would get, as Westfield extended the lead to seven points early in the fourth quarter before both teams hit a scoring slump that lasted nearly four minutes. The Bulldogs consistency from the free throw line - they finished 18-19 and were 15-15 before their first miss - helped close things out.

"I said to my guys 'at some point in time every team but one is gonna lose a basketball game to end their season,'" Roller said. "We've been talking about it for three years. We played smart, we played hard, we played together. If you do those three things, you know you played the [best] basketball game you could play that day."

While the sting of the loss was evident on the faces of players and coaches alike, Roller said there will be no difficulty in looking back on this season as a success.

"The goal [the players] laid out was the district championship," Roller said. "We ended up having a home region game, winning a region game. We've had the best season in the history of the school. I think that about sums it up."