King leads Stars past South Elgin at Sears Centre
Take St. Charles North forward Kyle King out of a high school gym and put him in a larger venue like the Sears Centre and what do you get?
The North Stars got the same dependable production from King in Tuesday's 60-47 victory over South Elgin they've been getting for four varsity seasons.
The 6-foot-5 senior scored 19 points and grabbed 6 rebounds to lead St. Charles North (6-3) to the Upstate Eight crossover victory in a game played at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.
“It was fun. I wish it was packed up (in the stands) just like for the Windy City Bulls,” King said of the modest weeknight crowd. “The floor was awesome. And the different atmosphere was great.”
South Elgin (6-2) led 14-11 after a quarter as 6-foot-6 junior Vince Miszkiewicz scored 9 of his career-high 27 points, highlighted by a left-handed dunk on a drive through the lane.
King answered with 9 points in the second quarter, including the first 7 points of the period. He helped St. Charles North outscore the Storm 23-9 in the quarter to take a 34-23 halftime lead.
“Their big guy (Miszkiewicz) deserves a ton of respect,” St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin said. “I thought he played well. I thought Kyle played well. Kyle's pretty steady. Every night he's close to a double-double. He's (averaging) like 15 (points) and 10 (rebounds) or something like that right now. We expect that from Kyle. He brings it every night.”
The Storm made 6 of 10 first-quarter shots, including a Nate Rohr 3-pointer, but connected on 4 of 12 second-quarter attempts, including 0 of 6 from 3-point range. Three Miszkiewicz inside buckets kept the South Elgin offense from completely fizzling.
“When you're a team that lives by the open shot and they're not going in, it's really hard to stay in tough games,” South Elgin coach Brett Johnson said.
Junior Tyler Nubin provided St. Charles North with a second-quarter spark off the bench. He scored 7 points, including a pair of transition baskets off turnovers during a 16-2 run that turned a 3-point deficit into an 11-point lead.
South Elgin turned the ball over 16 times overall compared to 12 for St. Charles North, but the North Stars held a 23-20 rebounding advantage. The difference was North's ability to work its offense to find and make high-percentage shots. They shot 45 percent from the field (22 of 49).
“They ran their offense, I think, pretty much perfectly the whole night,” Johnson said. “We had a game plan and I think we did a good job planning for it, but we'd over rotate and then they'd make the right pass and make the shot or get the layup or we would lose our communication or we don't follow the game plan. When you do that it's hard to beat a team of St. Charles North's caliber.”
Senior forward Cade Callaghan and reserve guard Lucas Heflen each finished with 9 points for St. Charles North, which plays Friday at Batavia (7-1), which has won 4 straight.
Junior guard Drake Montgomery scored 7 points and Rohr added 6 points for South Elgin, which is idle until Dec. 27, when the 90th Annual Chuck Dayton Tournament at DeKalb begins.