Rolling Meadows defeats Glenbard South

Rolling Meadows boys basketball coach Kevin Katovich liked how his team responded to host Glenbard South on Tuesday on two fronts during the Mustangs’ 55-48 victory.

“I was pleased with the first half. Glenbard South came out in the second half with a lot of intensity and they did give us some problems. But we regrouped and gutted out the win,” he said.

Rolling Meadows (7-10) led 12-5 after the first quarter and Pat Kramp’s basket with 6:31 left until halftime put his team up 20-5. The Mustangs kept a 12-14-point lead the rest of the quarter for a 30-16 intermission advantage.

Kramp shared game-high scoring honors with Glenbard South’s Chaun Rickette with each hitting for 22. Kramp hit for four 3-pointers during the first half.

“We were running our offense and getting good looks. There’s not much more you can ask of the offense,” Kramp said of the first half.

Katovich praised the senior and how the offense utilized his shooting ability.

“He’s a good 3-point shooter. The offense did a nice job of generating open looks and putting him in good spots to take the shots,” the Rolling Meadows coach said.

The Mustangs led 42-24 at the end of three quarters. But Glenbard South (8-7) was far from finished. After an 8-point third quarter, it exploded for 24 points in the final period. Rickette hit for 12 points in the final period and senior Alex Jeske, the other Raiders scorer to reach double digits with 16, sank 6 points.

Rickette battled in traffic underneath the basket for a shot that made it 51-48 with just 30.3 seconds left in the game. The Mustangs then proceeded to make 4 of 6 free throws to seal the win.

Rickette’s final basket of the game capped an 8-1 run by the Raiders that inlcuded 6 points from him and a field goal by Jeske in the paint that cut Rolling Meadows’ lead to 5.

“We stopped their penetration. They had gotten to the free-throw line. They had exploited gaps in our zone,” Kramp said.

Two of his teammates also scored in double digits with Matt Dolan getting 12 and Charlie Metzger with 10.

Glenbard South coach Wade Hardtke said his team had been playing well going into Tuesday. It was simply a night that wasn’t kind to the Raiders.

“We got off to a slow start. Offensively, we struggled and defensively we struggled. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like we came ready to play,” he said.