Elk Grove nets share of MSL East title

Elk Grove may not be playing for the Mid-Suburban League boys basketball championship, but the Grenadiers are no less East Division champions after Friday night's 55-50 win at Wheeling.

The Grens will share the division crown with Prospect, although the Knights had the tiebreaker to play for the league crown in their favor. But none of the dampened Elk Grove's enthusiasm for its first title of any kind in 12 years.

"We're co-champs," exclaimed Elk Grove (17-9, 8-2) head coach Anthony Furman. "First time since '04."

"It still means a lot," despite being shared, said Elk Grove high scorer (17 points) Joey Gatziolis, whose 3-point play off of an inbounds pass late in the fourth quarter gave the Grens an insurmountable 49-41 lead. "It's huge for us."

Now, as the Grens prepare for what they hope will be a deep tournament run, they're looking back at this contest against a game Wheeling team that gave them all they wanted.

"We knew it was going to be tough," said Furman. "They've been playing everyone like this."

The Wildcats (7-18, 2-8) certainly kept it interesting, swapping leads with the Grens seven times in the first half alone before Gatziolis scored on a drive and then a buzzer-beating fadeaway from the corner to end the half with a 31-23 lead.

But it was far from over. "Every time we got up by 8, they kept getting it back to 5 or 6," Furman said.

But Wheeling shot itself out of the game, hitting just 20 of 50 shots and going 2-for-17 on 3-pointers.

While a hot hand from Ryan Caulfield (11 points) kept Wheeling in the game in the first half, T.J. Best (12 points) and big center Patrick Spzir (14) came off the bench and kept the game close in the second half.

But after Szpir's 3-point play got the Wildcats within 35-34, Elk Grove asserted itself. Tyree Howard took over the floor show in the fourth quarter, scoring on a baseline drive and again after Gatziolis kept a miss alive on the offensive boards. Howard fed Stefan Pantovic twice for press-breaker layups as Elk Grove shared the ball neatly against Wheeling's last-gasp pressure.

The game was a synopsis of Wheeling's season. "The story has been all year that we go on a 3-4 minute great run, then the other team calls time out and they go on a 5-6-point run," said Wheeling coach Mike O'Keeffe.

The Wildcats' coach felt Gatziolis' first half-ending spree was critical, breaking open a close game. "We gave up 31 points in the first half," he noted, too many against a team the quality of Elk Grove.

Elk Grove, meanwhile, needs to pick up its co-championship plaque and ribbons it will receive for sharing the East crown before playing a divisional crossover next week against Hoffman Estates and opening play in the tournament a week later against Palatine at Conant.

Sharing the crown will help the Grens, going forward.

"This is a big positive going into the playoffs," Gatziolis said.