College of DuPage’s men’s basketball team beat Oakton Community College in a 84-51 victory. Despite the huge margin, the win was not an easy one for the Chaparrals to attain.

Right at the start of the first half, the Chaparrals struggled tremendously to defend against Oakton’s commanding offense. Many COD players were rotated in and off the court in an effort to get fresh players to see who would perform well.

The remaining time in the first half continued to tick down, and the game was starting to look very grim for the Chaparrals. Oakton Community College was leading the first half in a 24-12 lead and gave COD a very hard time moving the ball on the court. The Chaparrals’ coaches decided to take a timeout to talk to their team to make a plan. Afterwards, the Chaparrals came back with a fresh start to their game and worked their way to catch up to Oakton. With solid teamwork, the Chaparrals were able to end the first half with a tie after Leverenzel Booth scored a two-point shot, tying the game 31-31.

When asked about what was discussed during the time-out, men’s basketball coach T. Earl Reed said, “We just talked to the boys on what they needed to work on and reminded them of what they learned in practice.”

After the second half began, the Chaparrals turned into a dominating team that controlled Oakton both offense and defense. The fans roared as the Chaparrals scored consecutive shots on their opponents, and would relentlessly stop Oakton from maintaining a high shot ratio. This boost in morale caused Oakton to completely shut down and was at the mercy of the Chaparrals. Leading the Chaparrals in points, sophomore Jonny Woolf scored a total of 23 points, and along with his fellow teammates, gave Oakton an extremely hard time to near COD’s net for the rest of the game.

Throughout the rest of the second half, Oakton’s players soon began to look exhausted and wasn’t able to score nearly enough points to dig them out of the hole they were in. The Chaparrals all looked happy at their improved playing and looked to effortlessly control their opponents for the duration of the game.

“It just took a little bit of time for the kids to get a feel of how they needed to play,” Reed said. “As soon as everyone was comfortable, they all had a much easier time and were able to play at their best.”