Logan pokorney's 22-point inside job turns back Valpo's final comeback and leads chesterton to 62-52 victory

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

From the instant Rob Czarniecki showed one of the five tools that led to him being ranked by Baseball America the 49th best baseball prospect in the country in the high school Class of 2026 by leading the team out of the locker room in an all-out sprint, it was evident that the energy level was elevated in the Valparaiso gymnasium Friday night.
Rivalry games will do that to a building.
The intensity from both teams and both sides of the gym stayed that way for 32 minutes of entertaining basketball, and in the end, the best player on the floor showed why he has that reputation and carried his team to victory.
Junior Logan Pokorney took his game inside in the fourth quarter, scored 10 of his game-high 22 points, and led Chesterton to a 62-52 victory over chief rival Valparaiso.
Sophomore sixth man Malachi Ransom (14 points) and freshman big man Bradly Basila (9 of his 11 points in the first half, two blocked shots, team leader in rebounds) are new to the rivalry, but both Trojans played as though they were born to play in it.
“I definitely felt the energy before the game,” Ransom said. “This elderly man was like, ‘Man, you guys have no class.’ I’m not going to say what else he was saying, but that was that fire we had going into that game. I think that’s why we won that game. He set us off. We were already set off and he set us off even more.”
Chesterton coach Marc Urban started both big men in this one, paring Basila with Caden Schneider, and Basila responded with his best effort of the season.
“He keeps catching onto stuff, keeps learning,” Pokorney said of Basila. “As long as he keeps doing that he should keep playing better and better. You can see it all the time. He’s getting more comfortable doing what he does and allowing guards and everyone else on the team to do what they do.”
What sophomore point guard Tobias Ray does changes from game to game, depending on what’s needed and how he’s shooting. In the 44-42 win against Portage, he scored 15 points. In this one, he facilitated as well as he ever has, penetrating the gaps of Valpo’s 1-3-1 zone, getting past his defender when they played a tight man-to-man, keeping his head up and hitting the open man underneath with perfect timing. He penetrated relentlessly but under control
“I kept telling him throughout the game, ‘Be a point guard. Be a point guard. Be confident,’” Pokorney said.
As superbly as Ray made Pokorney’s wish his command, lucky is the person Pokorney tells to buy a Mega Millions ticket and win the jackpot.
“I thought TJ (Ray) and Malachi both played great tonight,” Urban said. “They both were able to get downhill and made the right decisions. They were aggressive without forcing it, and that’s what good basketball players do.”
Ransom played taller than his 5-foot-10 height when he skied for multiple rebounds, and his play of the day came when he ripped the ball from the man he was guarding and took it in for a layup. He handed out assists during the game and compliments after it.
“TJ was setting our guys up to get success,” Ransom said. “That’s our PG 1. The team’s in his hands and my hands sometimes too, so TJ did really good for us.”
So did Ransom, poking a hole in Valpo’s comeback balloon. Chesterton led 14-10, heading into the second quarter and 31-25 at the half after Pokorney stole the ball and took it in for a layup. The margin expanded to 35-25 with a couple of quick buckets in the second half.
Valpo caught up with a 10-point run, prompting a timeout from Urban. Caden Crowell’s drives and jumpers (nine points) and Maddux Wagner’s fancy footwork in the post (17 points) brought about the comeback.
Coming out of that timeout, Chesterton went on a 12-point run to take a 47-35 lead early in the fourth quarter on Ray’s 3-pointer. Ransom scored the first five points of the run, and the Trojans outscored the hosts 9-0 in the final 1:40 of the third quarter.
Senior reserve guard Anthony Gonzalez made big contributions at both ends during the run. When his ball pressure made his man jumpy enough to slightly mishandle one dribble, Gonzalez pounced on the ball as quickly as a cheapskate does a penny in parking lot and gained a possession for his team. As the players on the floor headed to the bench for the break before starting the final period, the seats were empty because all the players gave Gonzalez, who hasn’t received as much playing time this season, a passionate greeting.
But neither Valpo’s crowd nor the players they backed were ready to take the Chesterton run as a sign that this just wasn’t the Vikings’ night.
Crowell hit a 3-pointer, Wagner kept scoring in the post and drawing fouls and the Vikings drew within 49-48 after a 13-2 run, but the Vikings couldn’t get over the hump and last led 5-2 early in the first quarter.
“When you’re on the road playing a rival, there are going to be swings, and they made a couple of runs, but I was proud of our guys being able to withstand them,” Urban said. “I don’t think we got too high. I don’t think we got too low, and that’s a good sign.”
This time, Chesterton answered the 13-2 run with an 8-0 one of its own to go up 57-48.
Pokorney, who had hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first half, went to work in the paint. He received passes facing the basket, with his back to the basket on the block and at the high post and turned them all into buckets, usually with his left hand. He scored the final six points of the 8-0 run. Pokorney took over the game and carried it to the finish line.
“We talk all the time about you have to make tough, competitive plays,” Urban said. “Yes, there are some times when it’s a wide-open 3, you have to step in and hit it, but he’s good in those small areas and we found him in the middle against their 1-3-1 and he made some big plays.”
The Vikings’ last lead was 5-2.
In its DAC finale, Chesterton (13-8, 4-3) extended its winning streak to five games and ended the five-game winning streak that Valparaiso (9-14, 2-5) took into the night.
The Trojans are back in action tonight against Whiting (0-20), which has had nine scoring outputs in the 20s or lower this season.