West Aurora's Kerkman notches win No. 800

With career victory No. 800 about to become official, smiling West Aurora coach Gordie Kerkman stopped senior Marquis Howard as he was coming off the court for the last time and prompted him to turn back and admire the scoreboard.

There, next to the 5-foot-10 guard's uniform number lit up in bright, red lights, was the number 46, as in how many points Howard poured in to lead the Blackhawks to an 82-64 victory at South Elgin on Friday.

Howard glanced at the scoreboard briefly and smiled back as the fifth-most successful boys basketball coach in Illinois history gave him a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. Though Howard's 46 points did not break the West Aurora record of 53 in a game set in 1959 by Fighting Illini great Bill Small, according to Kerkman, his 14 3-pointers in 21 attempts shattered the previous school record of eight and is the second-best 3-point perfomance in state history, according to IHSA records.

Both coach and player said West Aurora (17-8, 9-4 Upstate Eight Valley) ran nothing special to get him open, that his hot hand was simply a product of executing the offense against the zone defenses thrown at them by South Elgin (9-19, 4-9). He drilled seven 3-pointers in each half.

"We were just trying to attack the zone, but after the first half coach wanted to keep getting me the ball," said Howard, whose previous high for 3-pointers in a game was six. "In the first half it was just get some dribble penetration and look inside, but (my shot) was falling.

"It's unexplainable. It's amazing. After my first couple of threes, I was feeling it."

West Aurora led 39-36 halftime and the Storm kept it close until late in the third quarter. South Elgin's Justin Howard sank four 3-pointers of his own, including one that tied the game 49-49 with 2:19 left in the third quarter.

However, the Blackhawks closed the period on a 12-3 run to take a 61-52 lead. Roland Griffin scored 4 of his 10 points from the free-throw line to ignite the surge, and Marquis Howard splashed two of his long-range shots, highlighted by a 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer that made players on both sides shake their heads in amazement.

"He was on fire," West Aurora guard Thomas Koth said. "We just kept giving him the ball. He couldn't miss."

"I don't know if I've seen a kid shoot like that ever," South Elgin coach Matt Petersen said. "It was incredible to watch somebody shoot the ball like that. A lot of times we had to drop to cut off penetration and then he was open and hit a lot of those. A couple of times we cheated and they had an immediate shot at the rim. It was a matter of what did we want to take away."

Kerkman becomes the fifth boys basketball coach in Illinois history to reach 800 wins, following in the footsteps of St. Joseph's Gene Pingatore (953), Rockford Boylan's Steve Goers (881), Dick Van Scyoc of Peoria Manual (826) and Centralia's Arthur Trout (811).

"As time goes on and I reflect on it, it may be a bigger deal but we're still involved in playing ballgames," Kerkman said. "We're looking for the next win, not necessarily No. 801.

"But I told the kids at the end of the season if we didn't win 20 ballgames that we were going to have a bad season. And we've got 17 now. We've got to get that last game against Waubonsie Valley and win our regional and we'll win our 20."

Koth finished with 11 points and Griffin grabbed 6 rebounds for West Aurora.

Matt Smith led South Elgin with 17 points, Justin Howard finished with 12 and freshman Anthony Lynch added 10 points.