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Carmel overcomes slow start against Elgin

Clearly, some of the credit goes to Shareif Belser-Bailey.

If Carmel's junior guard had not made good on a 3-point play late in the first quarter on Saturday afternoon, the Corsairs' boys basketball team would have been shut out for the entire quarter.

Carmel missed 10 of 11 shots in the period in this matchup against Elgin at the 3rd annual Martin Luther King Classic held at Lake Zurich.

However, there were plenty of reasons for this poor shooting. The Corsairs (8-10) had played Friday night at Marist, and got home late.

Carmel also had already played host Lake Zurich on Saturday morning.

OK - enough of the bad news for Carmel. The Corsairs outscored Elgin 24-6 in the fourth quarter, had three starters score 11 points and put away the Maroons 56-35.

"We had a rough start,'' Belser-Bailey said. "We came into this game a little tired. We were missing a lot of shots. But in the second half, we got things going."

Now, it wasn't exactly like the Maroons took full advantage of the first-quarter Carmel drought. Elgin's stylish guard Desmond Douglas had 5 of his team's 9 points and took that 6-point lead to the second quarter. And the Maroons (5-12) matched that lead late in the second quarter when Chaquille Bennett landed a 3-pointer to put Elgin up 18-12.

"We were still in this game in the third quarter,'' said Elgin coach Mike Sitter. "We are playing a lot of young kids."

Carmel outscored Elgin 11-1 in the final two minutes to take a 23-19 halftime lead.

"We played good defense,'' said Carmel coach Zack Ryan. "The game got better. And I was happy that our kids took it upon themselves to figure it out."

Belser-Bailey (11 points) had a strong third quarter as he scored 6 points. Still, the Carmel lead was just 32-29 heading to the fourth quarter.

And it's safe to say it wasn't a great fourth quarter from the young Maroons.

"We picked a bad time to play our worst quarter of the year,'' Sitter said.

Nathaniel Reid, another 11-point scorer, landed two of his team-leading three 3s in the fourth-quarter romp. All of a sudden the Carmel lead had grown to double figures. Brian Julien joined the 11-point parade when he tallied 5 points in the final quarter, and Ryan was able to clear his bench late in the period.

That still didn't stop the sudden scoring machine from Carmel. Both Maxx Mainzer and William Heimberger scored buckets in the final minute.

"We have a very athletic team,'' Belser-Bailey said. "We got our fastbreak going."

Christopher Duff broke the 11-point mold when he scored 12 points for Carmel. Douglas led the Maroons with 14 points.

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