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Murphy helps Rolling Meadows rally past Buffalo Grove

Rolling Meadows junior forward Jared Murphy had a tough time getting going Monday night against Buffalo Grove in the Class 4A Conant boys basketball regional quarterfinals.

Murphy had 2 points going into the latter stages of the third quarter.

The Mustangs, though, relied on seniors Matt Wojick (13 points) and John Lothery (12) until Murphy could find his groove.

And find it he did.

Murphy scored 14 of his team's next 19 points as Rolling Meadows opened a 46-32 lead with 4:01 left in the game.

That surge helped the senior-oriented Mustangs hold off the youthful Bison 55-47.

"He's a good player," said Bison coach Keith Peterson. "His teammates executed for him. He did a lot for them in that stretch. You just can't stop a guy like that for 32 minutes."

Murphy finished with a team-best 17 points.

The 16th-seeded Bison (9-18) pulled to within 50-45 of the 17th-seeded Mustangs following Colin Calcagno's 3-point basket with 1:03 left.

Jack Schoessling stopped the Buffalo Grove 7-2 run with a free throw before Bison center Mac Camardo (game-high 18 points, 8 rebounds) scored his last basket to make it 51-47 with :47 left.

The Mustangs (9-16), who face top-seeded Conant on Tuesday night, hit 4 of 6 free throws in the game's last 42 seconds.

"We had a good week of practice and started out the game strong," said Peterson. "But when things went off script, we struggled. When we were down by 14 and cut it to 5, we were running out of time and they made their free throws."

Rolling Meadows made 17 of 22 shots from the free throw line. Buffalo Grove won the rebound battle 26-20.

"They played pretty good defense on us," said Murphy. "I tried to get the others involved with some defense and passing. I started to get some good looks and made some shots. We then started to get more aggressive. This was an exciting win for us. We didn't do as well in the regular season as we thought we would. But it's a new season and we just want to go as far as we can."

"I though our defense kept us in the game tonight," said Rolling Meadows coach Kevin Katovich. "When we were down 9-0 to start the game we didn't panic and we chipped away at the lead to tie them after the first quarter. Our seniors really showed some good leadership until Jared got going. When the other players get involved in scoring like tonight, we do well."

Buffalo Grove improved steadily in the second half of the season and is looking forward to good things next winter.

"We're trending in the right direction," said Peterson. "We need to have a good summer. Our young players made some nice improvements during the year."

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