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Turnovers costly for Dundee-Crown

The waning seconds of the boys basketball game epitomized the offensive frustration of Dundee-Crown.

The Chargers missed 4 point-blank shots in second-day pool play at the Leland Strombom Tournament in Sycamore on Wednesday afternoon.

D-C failed to score from the field in the final quarter in dropping a 48-39 decision against Genoa-Kingston.

The Cogs (1-1) limited D-C (0-2) to 6 free throws in the fourth quarter. But the free-throw line also proved to be problematic for the Chargers.

After reducing a 10-point third quarter deficit to one midway through the fourth quarter, the Chargers twice missed opportunities to forge a tie or take the lead. The team missed 9 of its 19 attempts.

"I don't know if they should call them free throws, because they sure as heck weren't free to us," Dundee coach Lance Huber said.

Turnovers were also a major issue for the Chargers. The beginning of the game commenced most inauspiciously with 5 consecutive turnovers for D-C.

G-K, meanwhile, ended the game with 8 turnovers versus the Chargers' 20.

"That's 20 chances we didn't get to score," Huber said. "You know you're going to have some (turnovers), but that's too many. We did not do a very good job of good job of passing and catching the basketball."

But Gabe Bergeron was a towering bright spot for the Chargers. The 6-foot-7 junior forward had a monster game with a game-high 17 rebounds. Nine of the rebounds came on the offensive end. Bergeron also blocked 4 G-K shots in the first half.

Khiry Powell, Bradley Stec and Bergeron paced the Chargers with 8 points each.

"I knew before the game the glass was going to be a big part of it," Bergeron said. "Whether it was going to be offense or defense, we knew we had to crash the glass. We came up short, but we all worked hard."

The Chargers' offensive miscues to start the game were the only peculiarity to its beginning.

G-K guard Zach Miller was the only player to score for the Cogs in the opening 10-plus minutes. But the senior hit three 3-pointers in the first quarter to account for all of the Cogs' points. He had 14 of his game-high 16 points in the opening half.

Genoa became much more diversified in the second quarter in doubling its first-quarter output to take a 27-21 lead at halftime.

The Cogs opened the second half on an 8-4 run to take their largest lead of the game at 35-25.

But the Chargers' Sean Jay hit back-to-back 3-pointers to significantly tighten the contest.

The fourth quarter would feature only 2 field goals, both by G-K players.

"I thought the biggest difference for us was turnovers," G-K assistant coach Ethan Franklin said. "They outrebounded us, but the fact we had a greater turnover differential - we were able to push the issue."

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