Prairie Ridge outlasts Dundee-Crown
Dundee-Crown's quest for a Fox Valley Conference boys basketball road victory fell a little short.
Gabe Bergeron's half-court 3-pointer at the buzzer which would have given the Chargers the win, bounced off the rim and host Prairie Ridge edged D-C 39-37 in Crystal Lake Saturday afternoon.
"Gabe was an option but certainly not the first option, " said D-C coach Lance Huber. "We would have liked to have gotten the ball to Jack (Orndahl) for a better shot. It wasn't an ideal shot. We put ourselves in a tough spot. We had our chances but missed a lot of bunnies and easy shots. We left a lot of points on the floor. Give PR credit they made shots when they had to."
Prairie Ridge coach Corky Card was impressed with his team's defensive execution during the game's final possession.
"Our plan defensively was for D-C to pass the ball backward and not too forward," said Card. "Our kids did a great job of forcing D-C into passing the ball to the backcourt and they had to take a desperation shot. This was a good win. It was a good high school basketball game."
The visiting Chargers (6-9, 2-2) seemed to be in good shape when Bergeron's tip-dunk gave the visitors a 24-13 lead with 6:59 left in third quarter.
Courtesy of four 3-pointers - 2 by Mike Patterson and 1 each from Connor Kazin and Joe Hansen - PR was able to climb back to within a point, 30-29, after 3 quarters.
Two free throws by Hunter Morlock gave PR the lead for good, 37-35, with 28 seconds left. Kazin buried 2-of-2 from the line to give the Wolves a 39-35 advantage with 9.2 ticks remaining. Jordan Hairston's layup with 2.9 seconds remaining made the score 39-37. PR's Jack Hoyland, who was fouled, missed the front end of a 1-and-1 free throw to open the door for a D-C win.
Bergeron paced the Chargers with 9 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Hairston, off the bench, added 8 points and Orndahl scored 7 with a trey.
PR, 8-of-16 from 3-point range for 50 percent, was paced by Kazin with 11 points, all in the second half, and Hansen scored 11 with 3 treys. Patterson, off the bench, tallied 9 points on three 3-pointers.
"Mike Patterson did a great job off the bench hitting some big 3s and he handled the ball well against D-C's pressure," said Card. "It was hard to get points in the paint because of D-C's size inside. We did a good job of kicking the ball outside for the open 3. They are a very physical team and their pressure got to us at times. D-C is a much improved team."