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Maine West rolls out a pair of victories

Maine West's boys basketball team extended its post-holiday roll with two big wins over the weekend.

The Warriors won at Deerfield 61-57 in the Central Suburban North on Friday to improve to 6-1 in the conference with three games left in the conference race.

And on Saturday afternoon, Maine West used a 33-point second quarter to beat Chicago Collins 81-65 to improve to 13-6. The Warriors have now won three in a row and eight of their last nine since falling to Prospect in overtime at the Wheeling Hardwood Classic in December.

"It was a fun game for the players," said Maine West coach Tom Prokopij. "We didn't have a lot of time to prepare the kids for this game. We just let them go out and play."

Senior guard Julian Dones, who finished with 24 points (including seven 3s) against Deerfield, had 14 points against Collins.

"Julian had a great weekend," said Prokopij. "Against Deerfield he started us off with three 3-point baskets that were NBA range and hit three big free throws in the last minute that iced the game for us."

Dones remembered last year's last-second loss to Deerfield that would have given the Warriors the conference title.

"We knew they would give us fight because they were just 1 game back of us," said Dones. "We remembered how much last year's loss hurt. Today against Collins we knew they were athletic and they like a uptempo game, and that was good for us.

"We like to shoot the 3s and drive to the basket. We really had good ball movement."

Maine West scored 33 points in the second quarter to lead 47-19 after being ahead just 14-12 when the first quarter ended.

Dones hit 3 of Maine West's six 3s in the quarter, and Corian Staten (10 points) hit 2 treys.

"Our defense was really good in the second quarter," said Milos Dugalic, who led Maine West with 19 points. "We had openings down the lane and we found open players with our good ball movement. It was a tough game but a fun one for us. We knew we would have to push the pace."

Collins (12-8) pulled it together in the third quarter by outscoring Maine West 29-20 but still trailed 67-48 going into the last quarter. Collins was not able get closer as Dugalic scored 7 points in the fourth.

Jack Collins had 10 points and 8 rebounds, and Matt Kentgen tallied 8 points and 7 rebounds for Maine West.

Collins standout guard Jaquan Embrey led his team with 25 points and Demarcus Williams notched 14 points.

"We were able to get good shots because we moved the ball and had good reversals," saod Prokopij. "It was fun for us to go out and do a quick turnaround after a tough game against Deerfield on Friday night."

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