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West Aurora pulls away from South Elgin

Gordie Kerkman was glad to be back on the West Aurora bench Saturday night - at least for a half.

After South Elgin stayed within 24-22 of the Blackhawks at halftime, West Aurora blitzed the Storm with the first 15 points of the third quarter on their way to a 64-45 Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division victory on the school's Hall of Fame night.

Kerkman won his 798th career game as he closes in on becoming the fourth coach in Illinois history with 800 wins. That could come as soon as next weekend when the Blackhawks play Neuqua Valley and East Aurora.

Kerkman missed West Aurora's previous game Thursday after breaking his ankle and elbow in a fall Monday, and the Blackhawks (15-7, 7-3) suffered a surprising loss to Metea Valley.

"It was definitely weird (playing without Kerkman) but no excuses," senior forward Tommy Koth said. "We didn't come to play."

South Elgin (9-16, 4-7) got off to a solid start. The Storm scored the final five points of the first quarter on Anthony Lynch's 3-pointer and a putback basket by sixth man Logan Atkins to tie the game at 14.

Lynch knocked down a pullup jumper to open the second quarter to give South Elgin what turned out to be its only lead of the game, 16-14.

Illinois State-bound forward Roland Griffin threw down two thunderous dunks for the Blackhawks, the second off a perfect alley-oop lob from Matt Dunn, but the Storm trailed by just 2 at halftime.

"I think their press didn't bother us in terms of turnovers but it bothered us from the standpoint of not getting set up in our offense," Kerkman said. "Once we beat the press we felt we had to score right away."

Griffin and Marquis Howard combined for all 15 points in the 15-0 run to open the third quarter. Howard scored the first four points on fastbreak layups; West Aurora forced 8 turnovers in the quarter to take South Elgin out of its game plan and turn the game into a rout.

"We wanted to take away transition and limit his (Griffin's) 1-on-1," South Elgin coach Matt Petersen said. "They did a great job of executing and being focused with that in the first half.

"We started the third quarter and the first two possessions we did not look where we threw it. The game turned that fast because we did not have that mental focus to be as sharp as we were in the first half."

West Aurora led 47-26 after three quarters and by as much as 27 in the fourth. Griffin (24 points, 12 rebounds), Howard (18 points, 5 steals) and Koth (14 points, 6 rebounds, 4 steals) combined for 56 of the 64 points.

"It's going to be hard to win conference but we have to get a good seed for the playoffs," Koth said. "That's what we are focusing on. I guess we are hoping for Neuqua to lose and then we have to beat them here."

Matt Smith led South Elgin with 17 points.

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