AURORA – One of the characteristics of a good team is its ability to win when it's not firing on all cylinders.

Plainfield Central was not at its best against Immaculate Conception during the third round of the Warrior Christmas Classic Wednesday afternoon at Waubonsie Valley.

However, it did feature a spark plug named Derrick Marks.

The 6-foot-3 senior guard had 17 points and four steals during the Wildcats' 54-50 victory. The Wildcats play a team yet to be determined at 5:45 p.m. Thursday in the final round of the eight-team tournament.

Senior Justin Scanlan added 13 points and junior Andre Norris chipped in 11 for the Wildcats (7-3).

"It wasn't one of our best performances," Scanlan said. "But good teams find ways to get it done."

"Anytime you get a win, you take it," Plainfield Central coach Steve Lamberti said. "We played early in the day, on paper we looked to be the better team and I was hoping we wouldn't come out with a lack of energy and we did."

"The first two games, we had a lot of energy," Marks said. "Today, I don't know, maybe because it was at 2:30, we didn't come with it. But we got through it and got the win."

"I'll give Derrick Marks a ton of credit," Lamberti said. "I thought he played his butt off the entire game. He worked hard, competed, played a lot of minutes, again, and kind of carried us in the fourth quarter offensively and defensively. Now, the rest of our guys have to follow his lead."

Leads were hard to come by during the tightly contested game. Immaculate Conception's 2-3 and 1-3-1 zone defenses at times slowed the game to a crawl.

Plainfield Central led 10-9 after a quarter.

Scanlan's third bucket off an out of bounds play tied the game at 23-all at the half.

Norris blocked a pair of shots during the final seconds at the end of the third quarter to keep the game tied at 38-all heading into the fourth quarter.

Scanlan's steal and a two-handed dunk at the other end by Marks gave Central a 42-38 lead with 6 minutes left.

The Knights responded with a three-pointer. But, after a time out, Zach Warner's driving layup and a putback by Norris gave Plainfield Central a 46-41 lead midway through the final quarter. It was the biggest lead by either team until the final minute of the game.