South Elgin holds off Bartlett
The regular season finale at South Elgin between the host Storm and visiting Bartlett had a postseason atmosphere as the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division boys basketball rivals squared off for the second time this season on Friday.
After Bartlett ran away with a 75-53 home win earlier this month, the rematch remained tight right to the end. With the Storm holding a 3-point lead, the Hawk leading scorer Ryan DiCanio was open and got one last shot from deep to try and force overtime.
South Elgin's Matt Smith, one of three players with 9 points to lead the Storm, was sitting on the bench after fouling out seconds before, and he breathed a sigh of relief when DiCanio's shot missed allowing the Storm to win 43-40 and snap a 4-game skid.
"It was very nerve-racking," Smith said of watching DiCanio take his shot. "I was sitting on the bench and couldn't do anything about it. I was just praying to God he'd miss it because I didn't want this one going to overtime."
Neither team firmly had control of the game, but the Storm (10-19, 5-9 UEC Valley) never trailed after Julian Lynch (9 points) hit a 3-pointer midway through the third quarter for a 27-25 lead.
The game was tied 30-30 heading into the fourth quarter and 33-33 with 4:51 left to play when South Elgin took the lead for good on a pair of Smith free throws, and the Storm lead reached 41-35 in the final minute after Tyler Hankins (9 points) hit a pair from the line. Both Hankins and Smith had a team-high 9 rebounds.
Bartlett (18-10, 8-6) did rally to within 1 thanks to a Jason Hasenberg basket and a pair of free throws from Augie Russo making it 41-40 with 25.6 seconds on the clock, but freshman Anthony Lynch (8 points) withstood the pressure of a loud crowd to sink a pair from the line for the 43-40 advantage.
"More importantly than us beating Bartlett and getting revenge is that we found a way to win tonight," Storm coach Matt Petersen said. "We've been playing well for stretches the last few weeks, but we were able to put an entire game together tonight."
Jordan Anderson had 10 points and 10 rebounds and DiCanio 10 points and 6 rebounds to lead the Hawks in their third straight loss. Bartlett had not lost consecutive games this season until this current skid.
Both teams open the postseason on Monday in quarterfinal games of the Class 4A Bartlett Regional. The No. 4 Storm takes on No. 5 Elgin, and No. 3 Bartlett will play No. 6 Streamwood after.
"Postseason basketball comes down to discipline," said Hawks' coach Jim Wolfsmith. "The teams are all pretty evenly matched in our regional. Tonight, we missed some shots we normally make and were a little flat, and we can't do that next week."