South Elgin hangs on to beat Aurora Christian
The South Elgin boys basketball team was sure glad to get the chance to put last Friday behind it. That's when the Storm suffered probably their toughest loss of the season when East Aurora beat them at home.
On Tuesday the Storm (8-5) bounced back with a hard-fought 62-58 nonconference win over a physical visiting Aurora Christian ballclub.
Logan Atkins led the way with a game high 23 points. Noah Rohr added 10.
"The biggest difference tonight was we really came ready to play," South Elgin coach Brett Johnson said. "I thought we ran the offense much better. We distributed the ball, worked it around, and got the open looks."
Like they have done so often this year the Storm fell behind and had to fight their way back to get the win. South Elgin trailed by as many as 9 points 48-39 late in the third quarter.
Collin Uveges started the Storm on the comeback trail with a 3-pointer in the closing minute of the third quarter. Atkins followed with a pair of 3-pointers early in the fourth quarter to get the Storm to within 55-53.
Moments later Atkins lobbed a pass into Vince Miskiewicz who tied the game at 55-55 on a lay up with 3:28 left to play. The Storm briefly pulled ahead 58-56 at the 1:57 mark on 3-pointer from Rohr.
After Aurora Christian pulled even at 58-58, Mickiewicz put the Storm on top for good 60-58 when he scored on a lay up off a dish pass from a driving Uveges with just under a minute left in the game.
"We have been in enough of these games to know how to claw back," Johnson said. "We just stayed around long enough to keep ourselves in the game. At the end good players make shots when they need to make shots and we made some big ones."
Atkins had five 3-pointers in the game and made 7-of his last 8 shots form the field.
"I shot so bad against East Aurora," Atkins said. "It was a horrible loss. I was so frustrated went to the gym a couple times and put in extra work on my shooting. The guys were setting some really good screens today to get me open."
Mickiewicz came off the bench to provide the Storm with a big spark in the fourth quarter. In addition to his big 2 baskets he had 6 rebounds.
"I just tried to stay aggressive, " Mickiewicz said. "I wanted to be the most aggressive kid on the floor going after the ball."
David Binion hit a pair of clutch free throws in the closing seconds to help ice the win for South Elgin.
Aurora Christian was led in scoring by Tanner Dissell with 19 points.