Hillcrest sophomore Isaiah Green was not interested in sharing.

Oh, he was OK about distributing the ball to his teammates. But when it came to sharing the conference title with Lemont, he wasn’t interested in that at all.

The 6-foot guard finished with 18 points Friday night, including 11 during a turnaround third quarter, to help the Hawks to a 55-47 South Suburban Blue victory in Country Club Hills.

“We knew they were coming in to share the conference with us,” Green said. “But we wouldn’t let that happen.”

This was the 33rd conference title in 34 years for Hillcrest (24-3, 13-0), a blitz that started in 1989 when the Hawks won the SICA Central title.

Hillcrest completed its 2021-22 conference season Friday, while Lemont (22-6, 10-2) has a conference crossover Monday against Oak Lawn. Lemont had a five-game winning streak snapped.

Lemont owned a 25-24 halftime lead, but Green went to work in the third quarter, hitting three 3-pointers and adding a runner at the buzzer to help put the Hawks ahead 42-37.

Green also had two assists and a steal in the quarter.

“I thought I would just take over,” he said. “That’s all I was thinking.”

Darrion Baker, a 6-7 junior forward, added 11 points for Hillcrest. He was impressed with both Green, his sophomore teammate, and Nojus Indrusaitis, Lemont’s

heralded sophomore.

Indrusaitis was coming off Tuesday’s 42-point performance against Hinsdale South and also picked up an offer this week from DePaul. He finished with 21 points Friday, including nine in the first quarter.

“He had some shots where I said, ‘Man, did he really just shoot that?’” Baker said of Indrusaitis. “We had to adjust to him.

“And we know Isaiah can shoot like that. We’ve seen him do that before. We have confidence in him. Both sophomores are pretty good.”

Green and Indrusaitis are likely to battle against each other the next two years, but if the postseason seeds hold true, Hillcrest and Lemont could meet again March 1 in Class 3A Marian Catholic Sectional semifinals.

Hillcrest drew the top seed, with Lemont being seeded fourth.

On Friday night, Lemont came out scorching hot on offense and defense, producing with five steals and taking a 22-12 lead with 7:06 left in the second quarter.

But Hillcrest slowly sliced into the deficit and scored six points in the final 50 seconds to close the gap to 25-24. The Hawks then took over in the third quarter.

The Hawks had a 12-game winning streak snapped Saturday by Kenwood with a 78-61 loss in a televised game at UIC. Even though it was their worst loss of the season, Hillcrest coach Don Houston thought it was a good learning lesson.

“I won’t say we needed it because you never need a loss like that,” he said. “But Kenwood has played on a stage like that so many times, so they were comfortable with that.

“We’ve never been in that situation. We needed to be in something like that, so if we ever get into that situation again, we know we have experienced it.”

Senior forward Marcus Glover is looking forward to another big-time game on that same stage. The Marian Catholic Sectional winner goes to the UIC Supersectional.

“Against Kenwood, it was a big stage and a big court and we didn’t come out timid — we just weren’t ready,” Glover said. “We weren’t nervous. We weren’t scared.

“It was just a bigger stage and we haven’t been there before. If we get there again, we’ll show people what we can do.”