Egekeze’s 32 pace Huntley

When Huntley is playing suffocating defense and senior star Amanze Egekeze is hitting from inside and outside, the Red Raiders are difficult to even contain. That was the case on Thursday as Huntley beat FW Parker 60-39 in the consolation quarterfinals at the Elgin Holiday Tournament. Huntley advances to play Corliss in the consolation semifinals on Friday.

Egekeze was able to establish himself early, scoring 11 of his game-high 32 points in the first quarter.

“One of the things we struggled with last game was getting him the basketball,” said Huntley coach Marty Manning. “We have a Division 1 player, we have to use him as much as possible because he’s Division 1 for a reason — he’s really good. So when he can score inside and outside it makes us a tough team to deal with.”

Added Egekeze: “I feel like every now and then I have to remind myself I have an advantage in the post and I can use my length and size to score. I tried to be assertive and started my way in there to work my way to play inside-out.”

Down 13-6 after one quarter, FW Parker cut the deficit to 15-12 two minutes into the second, but it was all Huntley from there. The Red Raiders ended the half on a 12-3 run and forced 5 turnovers during that time. Egekeze hit a jumper from the top of the key as the clock expired to give Huntley a 27-15 lead at the break

“We knew we had a letdown on Monday,” said Egekeze, a Belmont recruit. “We wanted to make sure we had a lot of energy on defense and get stops. Our goal is to hold teams to 40 points and we did that today.”

FW Parker cut the lead to 41-33 early in the fourth quarter, but Huntley responded with a 14-2 run to put the game away. The Red Raiders (6-4) scored 4 second-chance points during the run as they held a 30-17 edge in rebounding.

“The first few minutes of the game I didn’t think we did a really good job rebounding and then some guys really started getting after it on the defensive and offensive glass,” Manning said. “I thought that was the key to the game — we did a really good job winning the rebounding battle.”

Senior Zach Gorney finished with 10 points and 7 rebounds for Huntley, which finished 22-for-44 (50 percent) from the field. Riley Wicks added 7 points and 5 rebounds.