With almost a full four minutes left to play in the third quarter of the Bloom Regional final, the host Trojans were already in the bonus, while the No. 1 seed Steelmen had just one foul called in their favor.

If anyone thought that would have lessened Joliet’s hustle and intensity, they would have been terribly mistaken.

The Steelmen kept the pressure on, even in foul trouble, and pulled further and further ahead, until closing the game with a 56-40 win over Bloom.

Two of the key plays came from freshman Morris Dunnigan, who had a steal and basket on a play that looked like it would be a jump ball as well as a thunderous dunk that put the final exclamation point on the game.

“I think that (steal) put the lead from seven to nine, and we just built our lead from there,” Joliet coach Luke Yaklich said. “I think we forced them to play faster than they ever wanted to. Our kids just played with a tremendous amount of pride and, I think, more importantly with determination.

“Dunnigan's steal, that came at a pivotal point in the game. That was just a hustle play, a toughness play that we're going to look at on film and say this is the turning point and try to sell our kids on that. But, overall, our kids just played tough for 32 minutes.”

Senior Anthony Shoemaker led the Steelmen (22-7) in scoring with a game-high 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting.

“This is the best feeling in the world, but we have more work to do,” Shoemaker said. “The trophy is good. I love to lead these fellas, this is a great group. Everybody fills their role. If one or two are down, we know we can still beat anybody.”

Junior Darius Norris added 14 points and 9 rebounds for the Steelmen.

“It feels good right now, we got a regional,” Norris said. “We played them last year and we lost, so, we had to get them this year. On the boards, it's just hustle. We try to box out. We try to get every rebound we can. We won by hustle plays. We needed everyone to contribute this game and we did.”

JT led 14-10 after the opening quarter and 23-18 at the half.

“I had a great feeling about our group,” Yaklich said. “I really felt confident about this game because I knew what we were going to bring to the table.

“It took a lot to beat them on their home floor. But, like I told our kids before the game, we've been in gyms like this before, at H-F, at Bolingbrook, at Lockport, where you’ve got to win games. Our schedule really prepared us for this game.”

Remy Roberts-Burnett scored seven of his nine points in the fourth quarter for JT.

Joliet faced SouthWest Suburban Blue rival Lockport Tuesday in a semifinal game at the Homewood-Flossmoor Sectional after Lockport defeated Romeoville 66-36. The Porters won both of the regular season games between the teams this year.