Huntley's defense denies Dundee-Crown

What the Huntley boys basketball team lacked offensively it made up for with defense in a 34-31 home win against Dundee-Crown on Friday.

The Red Raiders finally ended a second-half field-goal drought that lasted 9:35 when sophomore guard Jack Bessey drove back door for a tiebreaking layup that staked Huntley (4-9, 1-1 Fox Valley Valley) to a 33-31 lead with 1:20 left.

"I looked up for the fake and drove, and the backside guy luckily didn't look up," Bessey said.

Bessey followed that much-needed basket with a key steal, and the Red Raiders increased their lead to 3 points when 6-foot-6 senior forward Connor Boesch sank the first of 2 free throw attempts with 19.5 seconds left.

However, Boesch's second attempt rimmed out and Dundee-Crown (5-9, 1-2) grabbed the rebound, which gave the Chargers a chance to tie with a 3-pointer.

The Red Raiders committed the 2 fouls they could afford to give and the Chargers attempted to inbound the ball with 7.1 seconds left, but a bounce pass from Kiwi Seals intended for Caleb Parson was intercepted by Huntley sophomore guard Alec Coss. He raced up the court and successfully played keep away until time expired.

It was the first home victory of the season for the Red Raiders and first-year coach Will Benson, who were blown out on Tuesday by visiting Boylan, 64-35.

"It's really nice," said Boesch, who finished with a team-best 11 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks. "Especially it's nice at home because we struggled last game against Boylan. It's good to see our team bounce back."

Huntley jumped to a 9-2 lead to open the game, courtesy of 3 buckets from Boesch and a 3-pointer from freshman guard Jadrian Flores. The Red Raiders never trailed after outrebounding the Chargers 15-6 in the first half.

"We did better defensively in the second half," Dundee-Crown coach Lance Huber said. "I was disappointed in our guys in the first half. I thought just the effort on the glass wasn't where it needed to be. But give Huntley credit. They did a great job. They were really aggressive and they took it right at us. They threw the first punch and we weren't ready to go, so that was a great job by them."

The Red Raiders led 15-10 after a quarter and 23-19 at the half. They expanded their lead to 31-21 early in the third quarter when David Cruz sank his third 3-pointer of the game in 6 attempts. Then the well ran dry offensively.

Dundee-Crown took advantage by scoring 10 straight points over a seven-minute stretch to knot the score at 31. Senior guard Kiwi Seals, who set a D-C single-game scoring record on Tuesday with 42 points in a 2-point win over Cary-Grove, led the surge with 3 baskets, including a putback of Piotr Agacki's missed free throw to tie the game at 31 with 3:10 remaining. Seals led all scorers with 22 points on 7-of-18 shooting from the field, 8 of 10 from the free-throw line.

The Red Raiders shot 4 of 16 from the floor in the second half, but they minimized the damage by limiting the Chargers to 5-of-18 shooting.

"The good part about that is we didn't let our offense affect our defense, which has happened in previous (games)," Benson said. "We were consistent defensively and, of course, Jack had the big drive at the end."

Cruz finished with 9 points, Flores had 7 points and 5 rebounds while fighting through leg cramps and Bessey added 6 points for Huntley.