McHenry handles Dundee-Crown
Two stretches of solid basketball by Dundee-Crown were too few and far between in Friday night’s Fox Valley Conference Valley Division game with visiting McHenry.
The Chargers scored the game’s first 4 points and 10 of the last 16. But McHenry took the lead for good midway through the first quarter and took control in the third quarter for a 51-37 victory.
“Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug,” said D-C coach Lance Huber. “I thought McHenry did a great job. They came out and played well when the game was kind of in doubt.
“I thought our guys played hard but we have to play a little smarter as well.”
The way McHenry (9-8, 2-3) backed off and played its man-to-man defense resulted in no fouls committed until there were 58 seconds left in the third quarter. D-C (4-12, 0-5) went just 2-for-3 on free throws.
“We usually get a lot (of fouls) right away, because we’re always taught to get up on people and play pressure ‘D,’ ” said McHenry senior Cody Freund, who led all scorers with 17 points and had 3 assists. “We stuck to the scouting report and did what we needed to do.
“Our scouting report said they have a lot of guys who get to the rim and they’re all quick. We wanted to muddy up the lane.”
The Chargers, who were without seniors Nick Munson (ankle) and Cordero Parson (coach’s decision), were just 1-for-10 on 3-pointers. They were 12-for-36 from the field in the first 29 ½ minutes before hitting 5 of their last 8 shots.
D-C junior Kiwaun Seals came off the bench and scored 9 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter.
“We did a great job of what I call scouting-report defense,” said McHenry coach Tim Paddock, whose team also had a 28-21 rebound advantage. “Our goal tonight was to make them shoot jump shots over the top of us and we did great job.”
Kyle Postal had 14 points and 7 rebounds and sophomore point guard Nick Bellich added 11 points for the Warriors. Freund’s drive off a turnover three seconds before halftime gave McHenry a 25-19 lead and sparked a 15-2 tear.
“I really thought that play right before half was a killer,” Huber said. “Then they came out and took it to us in the third quarter.”