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Wheaton Warrenville South stops Waubonsie Valley

On a night when both offenses started slowly, it was good for Wheaton Warrenville South to have its defense to lean on right from the opening tip.

The Tigers held Waubonsie Valley to 6 points in the first half and survived a little scare in the third quarter before knocking off the Warriors 50-29 Friday in DuPage Valley Conference boys basketball action in Aurora.

Wheaton Warrenville South led 7-6 after one quarter and then blanked Waubonsie Valley 13-0 in the second quarter to claim a 14-point lead at the half. The Warriors (5-19, 1-13), however, did close to within 29-25 following a layup by A.J. Hardaway in the third quarter, but the Tigers pulled away from there.

"We're kind of fighting things offensively," WW South coach Mike Healy said. "But I thought we played really, really hard defensively. They did a good job. They took it upon themselves to have a good practice yesterday."

The Tigers' offense struggled in Tuesday's 44-26 loss to Naperville Central, but on Friday center Eric Rasch got things going inside early on and later in the game the team's outside shots started to fall. Rasch led all scorers with 8 points in the first half on his way to a team-high 12 points.

"The defense definitely helped us out," said Rasch, who also had 8 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. "They had 6 points at the half so that was pretty good. It was important for us to bounce back."

Healy said having the 6-foot-5 senior on the floor helps settle the Tigers down.

"Eric played great," the coach said after the team improved to 16-10, 8-6. "He had a ton of energy. He was a focal point scoring the ball, but I thought he also distributed the ball real well.

"He had a couple big assists and he was great on the glass. He's so important to us because he's the one kid for us that is 6-5. When he's playing like that, it kind of calms things down. I feel like we'll get the rebounds and some stuff around the basket."

The young Warriors, who have five freshmen and sophomores in their rotation, could mange just a pair of 3-pointers by Brian Phillips in the first half. But Demetrius Ewing scored 6 points in the third quarter alone as the hosts tallied 17 of their 29 points on the night in the quarter.

"Yeah, we had a good run in the third quarter, but we let up some 3s and some of our turnovers led to three-point plays and wide-open 3s," Waubonsie Valley coach Chaz Taft said. "We have just got to put some streaks together. We need to string some things together on the offensive side, but then we've also got to string together some stops on defense."

After the Warriors closed to within four points late in the third quarter, Will Bach split pair of free throws for the Tigers and Ryan Scudder followed with a 3. Matt Dacy-Sejio would add a 3 and Rasch a tip-in as the Tigers built their lead to 36-23 after three quarters and extended that lead more in the final quarter.

"They cut it to four, and we had some technical things going on and I thought our kids responded real well," said Healy, referring in part to a double-technical called in the third quarter. "I felt like we were fighting it offensively at times tonight, but I still felt good because of how hard we were playing defensively … the number of tips we were getting and we were just very active."

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