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McHenry knocks off Crystal Lake South again

Playing Crystal Lake South brings out the best in McHenry's boys basketball team.

"We don't like them and they don't like us, that's pretty much it," said McHenry junior guard Nick Bellich. "It's a fun game. We love playing them because they're a really good team."

The Fox Valley Conference Valley Division matchups have not been much fun lately for the Gators. The Warriors completed a regular-season sweep for the second straight year as Bellich scored a game-high 22 points in a 61-55 victory Friday night at McHenry's West Campus.

McHenry (5-19, 2-5) only trailed twice and took the lead for good with a 7-point run to start the fourth quarter as it snapped an 8-game losing streak. Its last victory was a controversial triple-overtime 2-point decision at the buzzer at CL South (14-8, 4-3) on Jan. 9.

"We're just trying to play as good as we can going into the tournament but this was a little bit of a setback," said CL South coach Matt LePage. "We just didn't finish. We just didn't play a good fourth quarter and they did and got the win."

The Warriors also started strongly behind the torrid shooting of the 5-foot-9 Bellich. His third 3-pointer in an 11-point first quarter beat the buzzer from 25 feet and he also hit a 23-footer on the run en route to a 16-points at halftime.

Bellich finished 7-for-8 from the field and 4-for-5 on 3s and had 7 rebounds.

"I thought he played as good as I've seen him play," LePage said.

So, CL South made a concerted effort to get the ball out of Bellich's hands in the second half by running bigger defenders at him and trapping in the half court. But junior DeShawn Wilson scored 12 of his 17 points after intermission and junior Corey Lersch scored 8 of his 10 in the in the last 3:49.

"I thought we over-gambled a little when we were down and they made us pay every time down," LePage said after McHenry shot 55.6 percent from the field (20-for-36) and 7-for-14 behind the arc. "Give them credit, they made layups, big 3s, free throws, they did it all. They played really well."

CL South led 40-39 after three on 2 free throws by Wes Buckner but McHenry built its lead to 56-48 with 1:44 left.

Junior Zach Geske (18 points on 8-for-18 shooting) hit a 23-footer with 16.5 seconds left to cut the deficit to 59-55 but the Gators were hit with a technical foul when they called a timeout and had used their full allotment of five. Bellich hit 2 free throws as McHenry made 11 of it last 13.

It was a big turnaround from two weeks ago for the Warriors when they blew a 10-point fourth quarter lead and lost at home in the final seconds to Dundee-Crown.

"A lot of people are shocked when we tell them how young we are," Bellich said of a rotation that features five juniors and three sophomores.

"Our young guys have been battling all year and they've been in pretty much every game," said McHenry coach Tim Paddock. "We knew at some point we'd put it together and tonight we did.

"We had a lot of guys play like they can play. Without a doubt it was our best complete game."

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