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Prairie Ridge beats Huntley in last seconds

Prairie Ridge boys basketball coach Corky Card had a timeout to burn, but he stuck it in his pocket with time running down in a tied game against Huntley at the Crystal Lake Central Thanksgiving Tournament on Wednesday morning.

With 12 players back from last season, Card opted to set his Wolves free against Huntley's inexperienced defense in the final seconds rather than let Huntley coach Will Benson set up his defense during a timeout.

The plan worked in Card's favor when 6-foot-1 junior guard Brian Dorn, a left-hander, drove from the top of the key through the left edge of the lane and banked a layup off glass with 2 seconds left to lift Prairie Ridge to a 53-51 win.

"It's really better for us to just free-flow and go," Card said. "The coaches over there are pretty good. If you give Will a chance to set something up, they double us, they rotate, they know what they want to do. So let's just play and go. If we miss, we go to overtime."

Dorn, a cross-country runner, was the only PR player to play the entire fourth quarter.

"I got the ball at the top of the key with 6 seconds so I had to something," Dorn said. "If I passed it, the next guy would have been in the same situation. I had to go for it. I had to finish."

Dorn's heroics overshadowed a clutch shot by Huntley's Danny Spoeth, who sank his fourth 3-pointer of the game with 26 seconds left to knot the score at 51.

Though the Red Raiders slipped to 0-2, they demonstrated a substantial improvement in light of Monday's 48-28 loss to Geneva.

"No doubt, we played much more together as a team and we shot better," said Spoeth, who finished with 12 points on 4-or-4 shooting from 3-point range. "We're definitely moving in the right direction."

Prairie Ridge (2-0) took a 28-26 lead when Chris Bradshaw sank a 3-pointer to beat the halftime buzzer, but Huntley held the Wolves to a pair of third-quarter field goals to grab a 37-35 lead heading to the final period.

Huntley senior guard Jamieson Allare and sophomore guard JJ Flores finished with 13 points apiece and senior Kyle Nwogu contributed 9 points.

Senior Logan Card scored 13 points for Prairie Ridge while Bradshaw added 11 and Dorn 9.

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