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Rice steps up in Cary-Grove's win at Crystal Lake South

Senior forward Ryan Rice and the Cary-Grove boys basketball team did not falter after big man Frank Jakubicek picked up two early fouls in a 58-47 win at Crystal Lake South on Saturday.

Jakubicek, a 6-foot-8 junior with an offer from DePaul and interest from Belmont and Northern Iowa, watched from the bench for the entire second quarter of the Fox Valley Conference game.

The Trojans were already missing 6-foot-3, 275-pound senior Addison West. He took a visit this weekend to Western Michigan, his future college football destination.

Cary-Grove (6-1, 2-0) was nevertheless able to extend a 15-12 lead after one quarter to a 4-point halftime cushion.

Rice sank a pair of 3-pointers and scored 8 of his game-high 18 points in the second period, and sophomore Ryan Weaver scored 4 of his 7 points off the bench.

"It showed us as a team that when one guy goes down we know that we can have everyone else step up and kind of take their place and still be ok," said Rice, who sank four 3-pointers.

Crystal Lake South (5-3, 1-2) was still within 5 points of the lead in the fourth quarter until Rice stole the ball on the perimeter and was fouled trying to score a fast-break bucket. He sank both free throws with 5:13 left to extend the Trojans' lead to 7 for the first time.

The odds of the Gators making a comeback nose-dived when leading scorer Tyler Miller (18 points) and 6-6 sophomore Casey Haskin (8 points) fouled out within 33 seconds of each other midway though the fourth quarter.

"We just over-fouled," Crystal Lake South coach Matt LePage said. "We're trying to play so hard because we're so tiny at times against kids like that, Frank. We just overplayed and got a lot of silly fouls."

The Gators sent Cary-Grove to the free-throw line 34 times. The Trojans made 27. CL South made 10 of 17 from the line.

"We spend a lot of time doing that," Cary-Grove coach Adam McCloud said of free-throw practice. "That's just a focus thing. We did a great job executing."

Jakubicek made up for lost time in the second half by grabbing 11 of his 12 rebounds. He finished with 8 points.

"It was a little bit of frustration and it was a little bit of trying to help my team out," Jakubicek said of cleaning the glass. "I was doing whatever I could and rebounding was it today."

Senior Matt Reall added 8 points for Crystal Lake South.

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