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Defense keys St. Edward's win over IC Catholic Prep

Even if the St. Edward boys basketball team sported an 0-2 record against IC Catholic going into the teams' third installment Wednesday night, there was no change to Green Wave coach PJ White's game plan.

Same lineup. Same man-to-man defense.

This time around, the Wave defense didn't wait until the second half to appear like it did in the previous matchup and set the tone from the onset during a 63-52 Metro Suburban West win at Fr. Edward J. Seisser Gymnasium in Elgin.

The Wave (12-10, 2-6) held the Knights to 15 first half points, while IC (11-10, 2-5) accounted for as many turnovers overall and shot just a 33 percent clip on 63 shots, which also included a 4-for-25 mark from 3-point distance.

So, did this look like a new Green Wave team on defense?

"We really did," said White. "They always beat us inside and when we would try to sag inside and they'd start making their threes and tonight they didn't make their threes. But some of that has to do with the defense."

And it had a lot to do with Green Wave guard Kelvin Cortez-Harvey, who led all scorers with 29 points to go with his 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 5 steals. Of the 7 turnovers the Knights committed in the first quarter, 6 had some sort of influence from Cortez-Harvey, who continued that effort throughout and used it to fuel his offensive prowess.

"We had lost the last two games (against IC) and this would be a good momentum-shifter if we won this game," Cortez-Harvey said. "We came out stronger defensively and tried to turn the defense into offense."

Cortez-Harvey's 8 points along with Andrew O'Neill's 7 points in the first quarter helped the Wave jump out to a 19-8 lead after 1 quarter. The lead jumped to 14 in the second after Harvey's steal and layup made it 22-8 with 6:35 left.

The Knights trimmed the lead down to 5 on a 6-0 run after Austin Reed was fed inside for 2 with 5:12 left in the third, but a Harvey 3-point play on a layup ended a near 4-minute Green Wave drought to start the half and put St. Edward back up 9 with 4:08 left.

The Wave shot 44.8 percent from the field and scored 15 points off turnovers along with 26 points in the paint. Adam Radcliffe tallied 14 points and 4 rebounds while O'Neill added 10 points off the bench. Radcliffe helped seal off the Knights in the fourth with 3 baskets and 6 free throws when Cortez-Harvey was a marked man and couldn't penetrate.

"Coach just told me that if we're open, we've got to put them away," said Radcliffe. "They do run to him and he can dish off. He's got good vision so he can dish off to one of us to put the game away."

Reed led IC with 25 points and 8 rebounds, as the Knights had a better showing in the second half outscoring the Wave 37-36. But the 6 of 19 start from the field in the first half plagued the Knights throughout.

"Can't expect to win games when you can't knock down shots," said Knights coach TJ Tyrrell, who wanted to get things going inside, initially. "I think everybody was playing rushed in the first half, and we weren't really fluid with our offense."

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