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South Elgin's pressure too much for Elgin

The Elgin boys basketball team practiced for days how to deal with the 2-2-1 press it expected to see from South Elgin at some point in Monday's Class 4A St. Charles North regional opener, but the Maroons still couldn't handle it once the Storm increased the pressure.

No. 4 South Elgin - a team surrendering an average of 72 points per game - created 16 second-half turnovers, mostly via its 2-2-1 press, to rally from a 6-point halftime deficit and win 74-55.

"This is one of the first times all year where we actually were energized by our defense," first-year South Elgin coach Matt Petersen said after his first IHSA playoff victory. "That's something we've talked about. (Defense) has got to make plays for you; you've got to get excited. And once they smelled blood, they kept going."

No. 5 Elgin (10-17) led by 6 points at halftime, thanks to 15 of Isaiah Butler's team-high 20 points, and the Maroons still led 38-30 with 5:21 left in the third quarter after guard Desmond Sanders sank a 3-pointer.

Soon thereafter, South Elgin (15-14) switched from a sagging 2-2-1 press to an aggressive, trapping 2-2-1, which thoroughly perplexed the Maroons. They turned the ball over 9 times in the third quarter and 7 more times in the fourth. Elgin sank only 2 field goals the remainder of the game as second-chance points were limited by the Storm's 38-18 rebounding dominance.

"There was not one thing we saw that we didn't prepare for, but we just didn't execute." Elgin coach Mike Sitter said. "What you saw was symbolic of how we played all year. We had a hard time putting four quarters together in the same game."

South Elgin finished the third quarter on a 21-5 run to take a 51-43 lead, capped by a steal and layup by sophomore guard Matt Smith, who finished with 14 points and 4 steals.

The Storm kept the pressure on in the fourth quarter and scored the first 12 points to pull away. Reserve forward Julian Lynch contributed 4 of his 6 points and during that spree and senior guard Darius Wells scored 5 by sinking his third 3-pointer of the game and making a steal, which he converted into a breakaway layup.

By the time 6-foot-8 sophomore Tyler Hankins (20 points, 13 rebounds) scored on back-to-back possessions to give South Elgin a 71-48 lead with two minutes left, the Storm had outscored the Maroons 41-10 over a 13:07 span.

"It did the trick on them," Hankins said of the 2-2-1 press.

The Storm advance to No. 1 seed Larkin (23-4) in a regional semifinal today at 7 p.m. Larkin defeated South Elgin 88-61 on Dec. 21 and 74-72 on Feb. 4.

"It's tough to beat a team three times in a row," Smith said. "We're going to come out, play as hard as we can and leave it all out on the floor."

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