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Burlington Central runs away with Hampshire

After Hampshire's boys basketball team opened the second half on an impressive 7-0 run to close within 36-30, Burlington Central had the perfect response.

The Rockets rattled off 12 unanswered points in a 2-minute span and went on to collect a convincing 80-53 victory Tuesday night at the Leland G. Strombom Holiday Tournament at Sycamore High School.

Junior guard Zach Schutta collected 16 of his game-high 23 points in the second half and grabbed 9 rebounds while Joey Ratzek added 12 points and 7 rebounds to lead Central in the opener.

"Overall we wanted to play a smarter second half from a shot selection standpoint," said Rockets coach Brett Porto. "We missed a couple bunnies and they got out and ran to cut it back, but it was a good team effort the last 13 minutes of the game."

"Coach told us we were playing silly in first half, so we came out and we started to slow things down and that worked for us," said Rockets junior forward Michael Kalusa, who scored all 10 of his points in the first half.

Hampshire got off to a strong start and seized a 9-7 lead midway through the first quarter, but Central went on a 15-point run over the next six minutes.

"It's tough because we want to play fast, we have to play fast, but we have to get stops to do that," said Hampshire coach Ben Whitehouse.

Kevin Michaelsen hit a trio of 3-pointers off the bench for Hampshire and scored 9 points to share team-high honors with Tre Powell. Center Nathan Gomez contributed 8 points and 8 rebounds.

Caden Scott finished with 10 points and Emmanuel Wells added 9 in a balanced Rockets attack.

"We feel like we have a lot of guys that can score the ball, so we just want it to be the right shot in the right situation," Porto said.

In the opening game, South Elgin battled back from a 17-point third quarter deficit, but dropped a 59-58 thriller to Rochelle.

The Storm forced 12 fourth quarter turnovers with relentless full-court pressure, but missed a pair of potential game-winning shots in the final seconds.

Collin Uveges paced South Elgin with 19 points, Logan Atkins hit three 3-pointers in a 13-point effort and Derek Baker helped spark the rally with 9 points off the bench.

"We played with a lot of energy in the fourth quarter and got after it as a team," Uveges said.

"It was a fun fourth quarter," said Storm coach Brett Johnson. "We didn't do what we needed to early in the game, but it's a testament to them that they didn't give up and battled to the end,"

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