Dundee-Crown downs Cary-Grove

His preference is to be called Jack.

But using the full first name certainly works better in situations such as Friday night, when the Dundee-Crown public address announcer referred to him as “Action” Jackson Buckley during the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division boys basketball game against Cary-Grove.

Buckley’s name was heard only once for scoring a basket. However, the 5-foot-10 senior guard was named the player of the game by D-C coach Lance Huber after his 7 rebounds and other hustle plays sparked a 52-39 victory in Carpentersville.

“Jack was all over the place tonight and he showed tremendous hustle,” said D-C senior Dylan Kissack, who shared game-high scoring honors of 17 points with senior teammate Brandon Rodriguez. “It was probably one of the best games I’ve ever seen him play.

“His intensity was contagious for sure. When we see him all over the place and hustling it definitely spreads to the whole team. He definitely set the tone for us.”

Buckley led the Chargers (13-5, 4-2) to a 33-24 rebound advantage. He had three on the offensive end to help fuel a 15-point run that gave them a 21-6 lead after 10 minutes.

“I felt like it was really a team effort with everybody boxing their man out, and it was my night getting the ball,” Buckley said.

“He gave us tons of energy and I thought he was fantastic tonight,” Huber said. “That’s kind of his game, but he hasn’t done it to that extreme yet.

“He’s a tough kid. He’s not the most skilled player but he gets every ounce of talent out of his body that he can.”

That translated to sacrificing his body by scrambling near the D-C bench for a loose ball and drawing a charging foul midway through the fourth quarter even though the outcome was not in doubt.

“I felt at the beginning of the game we had a lot of energy,” Buckley said after scoring his only points on a backdoor layup off a Rodriguez feed to start the second half. “The team was really going before the game started and that helped me get going.”

Kissack had it going in the first half with 13 points on 6-for-9 shooting and Rodriguez hit his last 4 shots to score 12 second-half points. D-C shot 52.5 percent from the field (21-for-40) without senior guard J.T. Beasly because of illness.

C-G (9-10, 1-5) shot just 4-for-23 from the floor en route to a 27-10 halftime deficit.

“We did pretty well on the defensive end and we were getting stops,” Kissack said. “That kind of set the tone for the game.”

The Trojans trailed 40-17 before hitting 8 of their last 16 shots from the field — including 4-for-9 behind the 3-point arc — in the final 8:03. Sophomore Jason Gregoire scored a team-high 14 points but they finished at just 28.3 percent from the field (15-for-53) and 5-for-24 on 3s.

“We were getting decent shots but obviously they were nowhere near close to going in,” said C-G coach Ralph Schuetzle after his team missed its first dozen 3s. “Obviously when you get the ball inside against them you know they’re going to be really physical and we weren’t strong enough with the ball.”

“They’re athletic, strong and aggressive. The only thing they’re lacking is size to be outstanding, and they’re pretty darn good.”