Cary-Grove surprises Elgin
Elgin and Cary-Grove had each gone 13 days without a game.
The Maroons were sluggish after the layoff while the Trojans looked in midseason form.
Holding a 19-5 lead after one quarter, Cary-Grove staved off a valiant Elgin fourth quarter rally in posting a 58-50 win in nonconference boys basketball action in Cary Wednesday night.
“We started the game being very patient and we either got good shots or great shots,” said Cary-Grove coach Ralph Schueltze. “We had great ball reversal and did a great job of finding the open man. We neutralized
their quickness with our zone. This was a good win against a very good team.”
The Trojans (6-8) showed no affects off the prolonged layoff. Making 6-of-10 shots including 2-of-3 from 3-point range, the Trojans, led by 7 points from Nick Richter and 6 from Matt Aulert, held a 14-point after 8 minutes.
As good as the Trojans were offensively in the first, they were better defensively.
The Maroons (9-4) made only 2-of-10 shots in the first quarter and committed 7 turnovers against an aggressive Cary-Grove zone.
The Trojans' biggest lead of the game was 19, 26-7, after 2 free throws by Ryan Anderson with 4:55 left in the first half.
The Maroons staged a modest comeback before the half and got to within 11, 30-19, at intermission as Kory Brown beat the buzzer with a 15-footer.
Elgin kept whittling away at the Trojan lead in the second and got to within 3, 53-50, on a layup by Jordan Dean with 56 seconds left. Those were the last points the Maroons would score. The Trojans iced the game on 5 free throws by Richter, who scored a game-high 23 points. The Trojan senior guard was 11-of-13 from the free throw line.
“This was a huge win for us against a very good team,” said Richter. “We worked on some different things on offense and defense during the time off and we came out ready to play. Everybody contributed.”
Jon Guay backed Richter with 9 points while Aulert scored 8.
Brown paced Elgin with 21 while Dean scored 11 and Dennis Moore 10.
“There was nothing good about this game,” said Elgin coach Mike Sitter. “We had a bad night. We didn't shoot well. We didn't catch the ball and we played poor defense. Even at the end we fouled the wrong guy. We got off to a bad start and never recovered.”