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Glenbard East turns result around against Streamwood

Having lost to Streamwood on the road early in the season, the Glenbard East boys basketball team was hoping to extract some revenge Thursday night.

And the Rams did just that with one of their most complete performances of the year, leading from start to finish in an eventual 71-57 victory in Lombard.

Glenbard East improved to 8-10 overall with a 4-5 mark in the Upstate Eight Conference. The Sabres fell to 7-11 and 3-6.

"A lot came down to our defense," said Glenbard East junior guard DaRon Hall, who led the Rams with 18 points. "At their place they beat us so we had to come back home and get our revenge on them.

"And Coach (Scott Miller) is always saying that if you get teammates open and get open shots, that's how you win games. And we did that tonight."

Indeed, the home team shot the ball well throughout, jumping out to a quick 11-1 lead and eventual 18-9 margin after the opening eight minutes.

That margin swelled to 33-18 at half and as many as 19 points in the third quarter before Streamwood mounted a mini-comeback behind Division I recruit Keenon Cole.

Cole scored 22 of his game-high 28 points in the final two quarters, including a pair of dunks, the latter of which was a breakaway windmill. The senior helped his team close to within 11 on three occasions in the fourth, but the visitors could not get the deficit into single digits.

Glenbard East closed out the contest at the free-throw line, making 11 free throws in the final period. Alijah Nelson hit seven of those and finished with 18 points.

"In practice we always talk about making free throws," Nelson said. "In games we've lost a couple of times because of missed free throws.

"We recently had a players meeting and we talked about becoming one unit, becoming one family. Today we became a family. We were up for each other and clapping for each other. We came out, shared the ball, got open shots and we were hitting them. It was a good game all-around."

Four Rams finished in double figures, with Antonio Davis contributing 11 points and 12 rebounds and Deon Cook scoring 10 points.

"We feel like we are getting better," Miller said. "We came out with a lot of energy, Antonio really gave us a spark early. Our defense is getting better and offensively, we are starting to run the offense a lot better. We are getting that open shot, being more unselfish."

Nikola Sinik added 10 points for Streamwood.

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