Rockford Jefferson hands Burlington C. its first loss

In winning its first two games at the 52nd annual Leland Strombom Thanksgiving Tournament in Sycamore, the Burlington Central boys basketball team was able to dictate the tempo.

Not on Friday, though.

The tempo and the win belonged to Rockford Jefferson, which handed the Rockets a 51-40 loss to advance to Saturday's championship game against Hampshire. Central will play Sycamore for third place at 6:30 p.m.

The J-Hawks jumped out to a 10-0 lead then started the second half on a 9-0 run in Friday's win, and BC was left chasing the lead the entire game.

"We can't simulate that in practice," said Central coach Brett Porto of getting behind 10-0. "I'm disappointed with how we tried to execute our offense in the first half. Our first two games we were able to dictate the pace and the tempo and we knew we'd have to do that again. But (Jefferson) completely dictated the pace and we were never able to find a comfort zone on offense."

Each time the Rockets (2-1) bounced back from a deficit, they couldn't sustain the comeback long enough to forge a tie or take the lead. They trailed 16-8 after the first quarter and 24-17 at halftime before falling behind 33-17 when the J-Hawks (3-0) came out on their 9-0 run to open the second half. Whereas Jefferson had jacked up 3-pointers at will in the first half, going 4-for-16, they turned to an inside game to start the third quarter, getting 2 baskets in the paint from 6-foot-2 senior Montel Brown and one from 6-5 senior Quinton Smith. The run culminated with a 3-pointer from junior Kaveon Rogers, who was 3-for-6 from beyond the arc for the day, with 6:17 left in the third quarter.

"We had too many empty possessions," said Porto. "Our offense became their offense."

But instead of packing it in, the Rockets found some offense and charged back with a 13-0 blast that brought them to within 33-30 after a Stefan Jochum layup with 2:11 to go in the third.

That's as close as BC would get. Brown made another bucket in the paint and added a free throw in the final 1:48 of the quarter to give the J-Hawks a 36-30 lead entering the fourth, an advantage they stretched to as much as 10, 48-38, after a Chris Ellis basket with 2:05 to play.

Luke McCurdy led BC, which was 13 of 35 from the field but just 11 of 21 from the free-throw line, with 11 points. Drew Wiss and Jochum added 9 each. Brown had 13 points to pace Jefferson and ML Moore added 11. The taller J-Hawks, who were 20-for-51 shooting including 6 of 24 from 3-point range, won the rebound battle 34-25.

"I am pleased with some individual efforts that helped us get back in it," Porto said. "We did fight."