South Elgin comeback falls short vs. East Aurora

South Elgin's boys basketball team Friday night nearly completed the same kind of comeback Illinois mounted 11 years ago when it was 15 points down with 4 minutes left against Arizona in the NCAA tournament.

But the Illini got the clutch plays to put them over the top in that classic and the Storm, however, wish they had a few more in the final minute in a 67-62 Upstate Eight Valley loss to East Aurora in South Elgin, dropping their fifth-straight game.

Six missed free throws down the stretch plus and a costly pass out of bounds with 28.1 seconds left down 3 points sealed the Tomcats' first conference win of the year. But South Elgin (11-14, 3-5), which shaved the lead to 1 in the final minute, will look past the fact it found itself down 57-42 with 4:30 and focus on what got it down 15.

"We dug ourselves a hole in the beginning, and then we started getting lackadaisical with the basketball," South Elgin coach Jim Cook said of the Storm's 19 turnovers. "If we had taken care of the basketball it would have never had gotten to that point."

It didn't help that East Aurora's Ronald McBride led all scorers with 24 points, including a 14-for-17 clip from the stripe. His 10 third-quarter points gave the Tomcats a 16-4 edge in the third for a 49-34 lead, where the Storm were turned over 5 times. It also didn't help that East Aurora (7-15, 1-7) was 30 of 36 at the line overall.

"They must've shot 100 percent from the line because they didn't miss any free throws at all," Cook said. "And on the road when you make your free throws you're going to win. And that's what they did."

It almost wasn't for East. Three turnovers in a 51 second span thanks to a full-court press downed its lead from 15 to 3. Storm reserve Collin Uveges, who hit a 3-pointer to start the quarter and secured a steal out of the press, helped force a huge turnover that eventually led to Logan Atkins' layup with 2:02 left that capped a 13-1 run and South Elgin was alive.

"The game's never out of reach," said Atkins, who scored all of his 11 points in the fourth. "We wanted to keep the tempo up and pressure them and make sure we trap, rotate and get steals."

Atkins later drained a 3 with 42 seconds left that cut East's lead to 63-62. But the Storm, who were led by Anthony Lynch's 12 points along with Matt Smith's 10, never got closer.

"I thought we had it the whole time," said Uveges, who helped the Tomcats into 8 turnovers in the fourth. "Even when we were down (15), our team is great at bringing energy and turning the game around."