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Bartlett gets No. 100 for Wolfsmith

The key for Bartlett’s boys basketball team Thursday morning, after blowing a 3-point lead in the final seconds to Barrington on Wednesday, was bouncing back against a quick turnaround.

Bartlett showed no ill-effects and in fact, turned up the defensive intensity, making Prairie Ridge pay for its miscues in a 48-28 win that earned coach Jim Wolfsmith his 100th victory, as the Hawks finished pool play at 2-1 in the Jacobs Holiday Tournament.

“One of the great things about basketball is that until you get to March, you always got another game to play,” Wolfsmith said. “And the thing about tournaments is your games usually come fast and furious. We knew we should have won that game last night, we understand we made some mistakes down the stretch, some composure mistakes, we missed free throws in the second half. Those compound together and cost us the game and a spot in that championship pool.”

Instead, they Hawks play in the Consolation A bracket at 3 p.m. against Elk Grove.

Jon Moss and Lance Whitaker poured in 14 points each, but it was the points off turnovers that really fueled the Hawks (10-4), who managed 15 points off 17 turnovers, including 11 steals. Coupled with Moss’ shooting (3 of 7 from 3-point range), including two in the third that helped cap a 9-2 run.

“They try to play a zone and we started to move the ball well, my teammates found me, I was getting a lot of open looks, I was just trying to knock them down,” said Moss, who also had 4 rebounds and a steal. “We just wanted to hold them under 30 points and just stay on them defensively, get into passing lanes and slow down their offense because they get a lot of back picks. That’s what coach talked about. Just slow them down and get into passing lanes.”

The Hawks held PR (4-11) to 12 of 32 shooting and a 4-point second quarter certainly helped Bartlett’s cause. Mike Bradshaw led the Wolves with 9 points, as no PR player scored in double figures. Bartlett also won the glass 21-18 and committed just 10 turnovers.

“There’s no question I thought our defense today was excellent, we usually pride ourselves on trying to create 15 or 20 turnovers a game and the last couple of games we let teams run their stuff and I was much happier the way we got after the ball,” said Wolfsmith, who didn’t tell his team about his milestone.

“I didn’t even know,” Moss said. “He didn’t even say anything. Didn’t say anything about it.”

“I didn’t know many people knew about it to be honest about it. It kind of went under a cover of darkness,” said Wolfsmith. “I really feel privileged to coach at Bartlett. I’ve had so many great players and great parents, my coaching staff is phenomenal and I think any coach will tell you any success you have is more a product of the society in which you have, the community in which you have it. And hopefully we’ll get to 200.”

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