St. Charles East's 3s bury Streamwood

Maybe the way to best describe St. Charles East's 74-32 Upstate Eight Conference River Division boys basketball rout of Streamwood Thursday night can be better put as a reaction: yikes!

Saints' coach Patrick Woods on the other hand maybe had a more alternative approach with the word "smooth" afterward, but either way you put it, when a team the caliber of East (8-1, 5-0) puts on a 3-point barrage as it did against the Sabres, rolling up 14 - including 10 in the first half alone to take a 53-11 lead at halftime - any one synonym can label this game correctly for the undefeated leaders in the division.

But possibly another positive for the Saints besides the fact that they could have just attempted treys and still won by 10, was that junior James McQuillan, in his second game back from a concussion and first start of the season, drained his first 4 shots and was 3-for-4 from long distance to lead the team with 11 points.

"He looked good to me," said teammate Jake Asquini. "He had his first miss ever in (Streamwood's) gym today. He never missed until this year. But he looks good. He's looked good in practice. He earned that spot back and he looked really well out there, looked comfortable."

Asquini also looked good, as he and Jonathan T. Ford nailed 3 from downtown for 9 points each while Jacob Clodi and Jeremy Champine, who scored 8 each, added 2 each from long distance. Michael Vyzral rounded out the perimeter shooting as East carried a 47-point lead at one point in the fourth.

"We take a lot of 3-pointers, it's part of our offense and we've got shooters who can make them. I mean why not?" Woods said. "I mean we have guys shooting well over 33 percent shooting 3s. It's a better shot for us sometimes."

Joey O'Halloran led the Sabres (0-9, 0-5) with 11 points including three 3-pointers, while half of Streamwood's 12 shots came from deep. "They're awesome," Streamwood coach Paul Kowalzysn said of the Saints. "They make all the correct reads, all the time. They knock down all the open shots even with hands in their face. They're a good, solid team. There's nothing else to say."

And it all started with McQuillan. His first 3-pointer came on a little 2-man game with Asquini with 5:30 left in the first quarter and the two would play hot potato from deep. Asquini nailed 2 consecutive 3s and then McQuillan fired again from the top of the circle for a 16-3 lead with 3:26 left in the first.

But that was just the beginning, as back-to-back 3s by Clodi and McQuillan opened the second quarter which led to a 31-5 advantage by the Saints, who scored 18 from the arc in that quarter, including 6-straight during a 19-0 run. A total of 12 Saints found their way into the scoring column as the team shot 50 percent from the field while gaining a 33-19 rebounding advantage.

"Before the game our goal was to get off to a good start, get a lead early and keep it," McQuillan said. "We moved the ball well, we got a lot of open shots. And when we get open 3s we're going to hit a lot of them."