Streamwood duo too much for Elgin to handle

Nikola Sinik and Keenon Cole may as well have been wearing capes for the Streamwood boys basketball team Tuesday evening in Upstate Eight Conference action.

In a showdown against neighboring Elgin, all Sinik did was score a career-high 34 points.

The senior sharpshooter hit eight 3-pointers on his unprecedent scoring night.

The Northern Illinois University-bound Cole did the rest after the break.

Cole, a 6-foot-7 forward, scored 16 of his 26 points after halftime as the Sabres rolled to a 74-51 victory in Streamwood.

"When I'm hot I just don't miss," said Sinik, who pumped home 20 points in the opening half on six 3-pointers to serve as the Maroons' chief villain. "My teammates did a nice job of feeding me."

With Sinik on autopilot from beyond the arc - all eight scores from beyond the arc from the left and right wings - Streamwood (3-5, 2-1) relegated the twin Elgin 6-point leads to open the first quarter as distant memories by halftime.

Cole added two 3-point plays of his own in scoring 10 first-half points to give Streamwood a 34-27 cushion over the Maroons (2-5, 0-3) at the intermission.

There were two sequences that illuminated the dominant play of the two Streamwood senior stars as the separation between the two schools only increased as the third and fourth quarters wound down.

On the first, with Cole leading a two-on-one fast break, the Sabres' standout threw a no-look pass to Sinik for an uncontested dunk.

But showtime was just starting for Cole, who wowed the home crowd moments later by throwing down a dunk on one possession and then adding his only 3-pointer of the game on the ensuing Streamwood trip down the floor.

"We had the same two-on-one against Elgin last year in a game and got a dunk out of it," Sinik said. "It felt pretty good to get that flashback dunk like that again."

Cole, meanwhile, tortured Elgin with multiple inside scores - six in all - after halftime.

"We knew we had to get (the Maroons) to move their zone," Cole said. "I would just get (the ball) in the paint. I had some good looks.

Kozyae Wright, a reserve forward for Streamwood, was the only player other than Sinik and Cole to score more than a single field goal for the Sabres.

But it made little difference to the final outcome.

Trey Yarber and Xavier Bonds had more-than-solid performances for Elgin go by the wayside in the Sinik-Cole onslaught.

Yarber had a team-high 21 points; Bonds added 13 for the Maroons.

"They got open looks," Yarber said of Sinik and Cole. "They were easy shots for them."