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Waubonsie Valley collects its first league victory

Heading into a rivalry game against Neuqua Valley on Saturday, the Waubonsie Valley boys basketball team grabbed some momentum with a 45-35 win over a cold-shooting Glenbard East on Friday in Lombard.

Senior guard Chris Karkazis had a game-high 22 points to help the Warriors (3-6, 1-4) earn their first Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division victory of the season.

"I thought we came out relaxed," Karkazis said. "We haven't obviously had a conference win, but what coach said was, 'Just relax, just play your game.' We had great weeks of practices and then we just tank in the game. Just relax and play ball and work to get W's."

Glenbard East (4-5, 2-3) got off on the right foot against Waubonsie back to back to back 3-pointers in the first quarter helped the Rams get out to an 18-11 lead after the first, but that's when the momentum suddenly stopped.

The Warriors picked up their defense and, paired with some ice-cold shooting from Glenbard East, took a 20-19 lead late in the second quarter to go into halftime up 22-21, holding the Rams to just 3 points.

"I thought we played very good defensively," said Warriors coach Chaz Taft. "I thought they run a pretty good ball-screen offense and they get guys open on the pick and roll a lot and that was our emphasis all week. How were we going to guard and mix up our coverages versus the ball screen?"

Led by Karkazis the Warriors continued to increase their lead with 11 points in the third quarter as once again the Rams could only muster 3 points despite the best efforts of shooters Adam Eboli and Zach Walsh, along with a driving Michael Finley.

"We felt like we were getting good shots, just everything short and then you gotta make adjustments and we weren't able to do that," said Rams coach Scott Miller of his team's 12-of-36 shooting night.

Glenbard East erased a bit of the deficit in the fourth after a Walsh 3-pointer made it 35-30 with 3:25 left to play, but Waubonsie held on and hit its free throws.

The Warriors went 9 of 16 from the free-throw line in the second half but got late contributions from Karkazis, Logan Yanisch and Jack Connolly to get the win.

"It feels good," Karkazis said. "It's a good away win before obviously our rival Neuqua Valley. It felt really good to get to the free-throw line, take a deep breath and just knock them down."

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