DOWNS - Twenty times in the fourth quarter, the Heyworth High School basketball team stepped to the free-throw line, providing hope it would put the game away.

Somehow, nine made it threw the net.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

With coach Terry Lootens saying "we made enough free throws to survive," the Hornets overcame poor free-throw shooting to escape with a gutsy 62-57 Heart of Illinois Conference road victory over Tri-Valley Friday night.

The Hornets (7-1 overall, 2-0 in the HOIC) took the McLean County/HOIC Traveling Trophy from Tri-Valley even though they shot 11-of-24 (46 percent) from the line in the second half.

"That's a hard thing. But in a pressure-packed game like this, that happens," Lootens said. "The great thing about it was we responded when we had to."

The credit goes to Nick Kronmiller. The 5-foot-11 senior guard made seven of his team's nine free throws in the final quarter to allow Heyworth to overcome poor shooting.

"I knew I had to keep my confidence up. This is a big game," said Kronmiller, who finished with a team-high 14 points, eight of them coming from the line. "We wanted that trophy and in order to win it we had to make our free throws down the stretch."

The Vikings forced Heyworth to win the game from the line.

Despite holding a double-digit advantage in the first half, Tri-Valley (4-3, 2-1) sliced into the lead in the third quarter and eventually took a 37-36 lead - its first of the game - with 3 minutes, 8 seconds remaining.

"We just lost our momentum," said Hornet forward Tyler Gooden, who scored 10 points. "We gave it all back to them. They just started going down and throwing (the ball) up and making it. We just stopped playing good defense. They played good on us."

But the Vikings failed to capitalize on the momentum.

Heyworth closed the quarter on an 8-0 run and scored nine of the first 15 points of the fourth to build a 53-43 lead with 6:07 left.

"We finally settled down," Kronmiller said.

Twice in the final 1:34, Tri-Valley cut the deficit to four, but turnovers and missed shots kept it from getting closer.

"We couldn't get over the hump," said Tri-Valley coach Jon Nelson, whose team was led by 18 points apiece from Alex Gelsthorpe and Andrew Lauritson. "When we got a stop, we couldn't take advantage of it, then they'd hit a 17-footer or something."

Regaining the momentum came from stellar play by Kronmiller. In the fourth quarter, Kronmiller scored 10 of his team's 18 points.

"That's what Nick has to do for us," Lootens said. "Nick's a senior. He's a three-year player. We expect that out of Nick. He wants the ball in that time."

Now the Traveling Trophy is in Heyworth for the first time in nearly four years.

"That trophy really meant a lot to us," said Gooden. "We knew we needed to get it."