Huntley breaks away from Dundee-Crown; Raethz wins No. 250

Huntley's 74-44 win against Dundee-Crown wasn't quite as easy as the score made it look.

The Chargers hung with the Red Raiders for more than a half, but Huntley finally put the game away with an impressive third-quarter spurt, giving coach Steve Raethz his 250th career win.

Ali Andrews scored 28 points in the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division opener for both teams.

Jesania Laboy led D-C with 15 points, while Creighton Fed and Allison Michalski added 10 apiece.

Raethz, who said he was unaware of the milestone, preferred to talk about his team's effort in shaking off a couple of tough losses.

"More than anything I'm pleased the way that we responded tonight," said Raethz. "They came out with a real focus. It we keep playing like that we're going to continue to move forward."

Huntley (4-3, 1-0) featured balanced scoring behind Andrews. Madeline Moffett, Morgan Clausen, and Alexis Lowitzki added 9, 8, and 7 points, respectively. Andrews also grabbed 13 rebounds. Kayla Barreto contributed 6 points and 5 assists.

Huntley raced out to a 15-2 lead, but the Chargers (2-6, 0-1) fought their way back in it. Laboy scored 6 points during a 12-4 run that made it 19-14 midway through the second quarter.

Huntley regrouped to go up by 14 at halftime and, after the Chargers scored the first basket of the second half, reeled off a 12-2 run to break the game wide open.

"I thought our kids did a really nice job in the second half of getting out and executing some things we wanted to work on offensively," Raethz said. "I thought we got a lot of different contributions from various players tonight. I thought it was a positive step forward tonight."