The College of DuPage men’s basketball team took on Prairie State College on Dec. 19 for the second time this season. The Chaparrals’ offense and defense gave the Pioneers trouble, leading by as much as 17 points before they started to pick up speed. Prairie State managed to take COD to overtime, but the Chaps put an end to their comeback. With a flowing offense, the Chaps defeated the Pioneers 100-94 to raise their record to 7-5.

“Sometimes it’s important to know how to win those games,” head men’s basketball coach Joe Kuhn said. “We had a good lead. We let it get away. Today we dug deep and made the key plays when we needed to. We had five guys in double figures [for points]. We started a little differently than we have been, and we just hadn’t been happy. We were not moving the ball enough. These guys went out and not only offensively moved the ball, but I thought their defense was tremendous.”

Freshman forward Braylen Meredith notched his third double-double of the season, leading the team with 28 points and 15 total rebounds. He also picked up four assists, three blocks and three steals.

“I’m feeling great,” Meredith said. “It’s good to get a win at home and a really close win [at that]. We’ve been building. We’ve been playing good basketball. We’re going to lead into the next one.”

Prairie State took the lead 79-77 with 46 seconds left in the second half of the game. Freshman guard Quentin Schaffer racked up 25 points and made one defensive rebound. He also recorded five assists and three steals. He said that COD battled to get the lead back and those situations will help them in future games.

“We know that teams are going to go on runs. We just got to keep battling when they go on those runs,” Schaffer said. “If we keep playing hard, we can come out with a win. The other team just started hitting shots, and sometimes that’s going to happen. When that happens we just have to keep fighting and battling back.”

Freshman guard Greg Strong secured 17 points and three defensive rebounds. He made one assist and one steal. He said the team’s defense was what made the difference in their win over the Pioneers.

“At the start of the game, we were defending and talking,” Strong said. “Everything was clicking. When the game got going, we stopped talking. We stopped communicating, and then they started running different offenses on us. We didn’t communicate, so they were getting open shots. We just had to calm down and go back to what we were doing at the start of the game.”

The Chaps beat the Pioneers 73-72 earlier in the season. Freshman forward Michael Glover scored 14 points and put up nine total rebounds. He said the team’s communication has improved since their last meeting with Prairie State.

“We came out way more intense,” Glover said. “Last game [against PSC], we knew it was really close and we had something to prove. We knew this was a good team and there was the possibility that we could lose.”

Kuhn said the team is making progress since their 84-71 loss at Carl Sandburg College on Dec. 16, and thinks this win was another step in the right direction.

“Hopefully we continue to play like we did tonight,” he said. “We’re building. I like the direction in which we’re going at this point. Hopefully, we can just keep building on it and get another win to close out the break.”

The Chaparrals battle the Oakton College Owls at 7 p.m. on Dec. 21 on Klaas Court.