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Crystal Lake South holds off Dundee-Crown

The Crystal Lake South boys basketball team fought off yet another late rally with a 63-49 win over Dundee-Crown in Carpentersville on Saturday, but this time around instead of trying to play a fourth quarter of survival the Gators concluded matters as masters of their own destiny in Fox Valley Conference Valley Division play.

South (14-7, 4-2) went with a heavy dose of senior forward Kyle Bartusch in the paint and the team followed an aggressive suit going to the cup, using a 28-point fourth quarter that included 13 free throws to turn away a Chargers team who watched Kiwi Seals drop 31 points and almost personally rally back D-C from a 16-point halftime deficit. At one juncture late in the third, it was cut to 4.

"That's happened a lot where you play real well and someone comes back in their home gym. We had it happen (in a loss at Marian Central on January 21) and I didn't like the way we responded," Gators' coach Matt LePage said. "But tonight, heck of a job on the road in the fourth quarter. I thought we had a lot of seniors make a lot of big plays. Kyle and (Alex Reich) both made some big shots."

Tyler Baker led South with 18 points, 6 rebounds and 4 steals while Reich added 17 points off the bench with 3 steals as both drained three 3-pointers on a night where South shot a 50 percent clip.

But as Reich was big in the fourth with 9 points, including a 3 to begin the quarter, Bartusch was able to fend off Seals' amazing 25-point second half that almost righted the ship for D-C (6-14, 2-4).

Bartusch scored 10 of 16 points in the final 8 minutes, including 6 in a 1:48 stretch right after Seals trimmed it to 38-33 with 5:50 left on a beautiful spin move that led to a banker off the glass.

"(LePage) told me to post up," said Bartusch, who muscled his way to the hoop in that run. "They were trying to get me some touches because I had a couple of smaller guys. I had the height advantage so I tried to take advantage of that."

Bartusch's one-handed runner gave South a 44-34 lead and Reich's steal and layup on the next possession with 3:50 left made Seals' 3-point effort at the end just too little, too late.

"You've got to play four quarters, you can't just play one or two," said Chargers' coach Lance Huber, whose team shot 14 of 23 in the second half. "We had a really good effort in the third quarter (but) it's hard to come back. Most teams can have a run but they had a big enough cushion to where you knew they were going to come back with something and then we had to chase that many points."

D-C climbed back in it with a 22-point third as Seals took off. The senior went 9-for-12 in the second half, scoring 13 and 12 respectively in each quarter after missing his first 5 shots.

"You have to lock down (on Seals), hope he's off his game for one day," Bartusch said, while LePage added, "he's playing so darn well, it really doesn't matter. A couple of those open threes, and somebody was there and he just made shots. He's a playmaker."

Seals scored D-C's 6 points all at the line in the first quarter that featured 7 D-C turnovers while its 3 points in the second came on 1 of 13 shooting which gave the Chargers something to fight for.

"Not wanting to be embarrassed," Seals said. "We had lost a couple games here on Saturday night that have been a little out of hand so we wanted to make the game respectable in the end. We fought back in the third quarter, it just got away again in the fourth. It's hard to sustain runs like that, keep other teams from scoring. We just tried our best to get in it."

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