Rochelle runs away with Kaneland

The Kaneland boys basketball team prefers to play at a controlled pace, but Rochelle turned Friday night's Northern Illinois Big XII East contest into a track meet.

The visiting Hubs raced up and down the court and scored virtually at will as versatile 6-foot-8 junior center Johnny Beck racked up a career-high 40 points and senior guard Angel Aguirre added 21 in a convincing 86-73 victory.

The Knights (5-10, 1-3) had four players finish in double figures with senior Blake Feiza collecting a team-high 17 points, but Rochelle (9-5, 3-1) shot a blistering 60 percent from the field and connected on 14-of-25 3-point attempts.

"Our transition defense wasn't very good and unfortunately we got into their tempo of game," said Kaneland coach Joe Conroy. "I thought we had that under control the last four games, but you could tell they knew what we were going to do and took advantage."

"I thought we played in transition like we've wanted to all year in the second half," said Rochelle coach Tim Thompson. "We were finding the open man and getting easy buckets and that just allows us to stretch the floor. Our kids have been shooting the ball pretty well lately."

Kaneland led 17-16 after the opening quarter behind 9 points from Feiza, but Beck racked up 18 second-quarter points and the Hubs buried five 3-pointers to lead 46-41 at the half.

"We definitely knew they were a good 3-point shooting team," Feiza said. "We had a plan to contest shooters, but even with contested shots they were making a lot of them. They also had too many open looks."

The Knights stayed within striking distance behind solid bench play from sophomore Brett David and juniors Brett Wallner and Luke Brost, who combined for 23 first half points.

"I was super thrilled with those three guys," Conroy said. "They really gave us a spark when we needed it. And it wasn't just on offense. Defensively they did a lot of great things. They got rebounds and got up in guys' faces and that was what we needed."

The Knights trailed only 53-47 midway through the third quarter, but Rochelle essentially put the game out of reach with a 16-2 run in just over two minutes.

Aguirre and Noah Griffith drained consecutive 3-pointers during that stretch and Beck's emphatic slam dunk gave Rochelle its largest lead of the game at 69-49.

Beck finished with four 3-pointers and five dunks as part of a 15-for-22 shooting performance while adding 6 rebounds and 3 blocks.

"Johnny was unbelievable tonight," Thompson said. "I've been around a handful of 40-point games in Rochelle history and that's as good as it gets. He did it inside, outside, dunking, just played a really good floor game."

Brost contributed 15 points for the Knights while David and Wallner tallied 11 and 10 points, respectively. Grant Heimerdinger hit a pair of 3-pointers in an 8-point effort.

"We'll take a look at the film and see where we were lacking and try to make some adjustments before we play Genoa-Kingston up in the Burlington Central Martin Luther King Classic," Conroy said.