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Palatine goes inside-outside to down Hoffman Estates

The inside game and the outside game.

Palatine had both going strong Friday night against visiting Hoffman Estates, taking advantage of every opportunity in a 50-36 Mid-Suburban West boys basketball win.

Six-foot-7 Pirates junior forward Julian Campbell scored 25 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, while teammates Tommy Swanson (three 3-pointers) and Connor Aikman (two 3s) excelled from behind the arc.

Palatine improved to 3-0 in the West (4-4 overall) with the victory.

"Feels great," said Pirates junior guard Luke Seiffert (5 points) of the perfect start in the division. "Winning the West was our goal coming into the year, we're on our way and we've just got to keep it going.

"We didn't think anybody was going to be able to guard Julian tonight so we just wanted to pound it inside. He did a really good job of finishing at the rim and he got us going."

Adrian Stachura led Hoffman with 10 points, and Hawks played well for most of the evening but couldn't quite catch up to Palatine in the second half.

"Lack of concentration, lack of focus on our part," said Hoffman coach Luke Yanule. "Julian Campbell is a big man and he played like one tonight. You can't give up 25 points to one guy, you've got to execute and we just didn't get it done."

Campbell hit 5 of his first 7 shots as Palatine ran to an early lead, but Hoffman hung right with the Pirates and took a 22-20 halftime advantage on a late second quarter 3-point play from Stachura.

Then Campbell opened the third quarter with a couple of easy buckets, Aikman hit a 3, and when Campbell took a nice feed in the lane from Josh Rivera and sank the layup, Palatine led 34-25.

Hoffman got as close as 6 points early in the final period, but Palatine was able to take a couple minutes off the clock with some great ball movement.

Then Campbell had two more baskets late in the fourth, the final one coming with 2:10 remaining to put the Pirates up 46-34 and put the game out of reach.

The Palatine defense allowed the Hawks only six fourth-quarter points.

"We know it all starts on the defensive end," said Seiffert. "The defense carries over to the offensive end and we really did a good job of that tonight."

Nahum Smith-Hernandez and Levent Sertesen each tallied 7 points for Hoffman, while Nate Fisher scored 4 points, played a strong game on defense and excelled on the boards (8 rebounds).

"The old saying about execution is that it's a mirage unless you follow through," said Yanule. "If you don't do the things that you have to do, good teams like Palatine are going to beat you."

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