Peek Channels Anger in Right Direction to Push Hart Into Tie for Foothill Lead

Ali Peek played like a player possessed on Friday night, scoring a career-high 40 points and grabbing a school-record 23 rebounds to lead Hart High to a 79-66 Foothill League basketball victory over visiting Schurr.

With a scowl on his face and a finger occasionally pointed in the direction of a defender Peek, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound senior forward, couldn’t have picked a better time to peak.

The win moved Hart (14-9, 6-2 in league play) into a first-place tie with Schurr (15-6, 6-2) with two games to play.

“I played with anger,” said Peek, who came within two points of the school’s single-game scoring record. “They beat us before and they could beat us again. All along that’s in your mind. You just gotta step up.”

Nearly everyone in sneakers stepped up to the free-throw line in the 2-hour, 15-minute contest that featured 55 fouls and more one-plus-ones than a semester of first-grade arithmetic homework.

Four players fouled out--three Schurr starters and Hart’s Matt Steffe--and five players finished with four fouls.

One of them was Peek, who picked up his fourth foul midway through the third quarter and did not return until the final period.

“It was like playing chess, making all those substitutions,” Hart Coach Greg Herrick said. “He (Schurr Coach Tom Thompson) was moving people in and out and I was moving people in and out.”

Though perilously close to fouling out, Peek kept up the heat, scoring 11 points in the fourth quarter, which began with Hart holding a 56-48 lead.

The score was subsequently tied twice, the last time on a pair of free throws by Schurr’s Jerod Parrott that knotted the score at 66-66. Parrott finished with a team-high 25 points.

From there, Peek helped settle matters with two short turnaround jump shots--his hallmark throughout the season--an inside basket and a free throw. Peek was 12 of 20 from the free-throw line.

Schurr moved ahead, 26-12, early in the second quarter before Peek scored 14 points in the quarter to pull Hart even, 37-37, at halftime.

With Peek on the bench in the third quarter, reserve forward Bill Bedgood filled in with six points, four on free throws.