Huntley handles Schurz at Dayton Classic
For two players who took only 5 shots in their combined 40 minutes on the court Thursday at the 92nd annual Chuck Dayton Holiday Classic in DeKalb, Nikolas Mendoza and Hunter French made quite an impact for Huntley in a 71-58 win over Schurz.
Mendoza, a 6-foot senior, grabbed a game-high 9 rebounds to lead the Red Raiders to a 38-27 edge on the glass.
"He does a lot of little things," Huntley coach Will Benson said. "He plays a lot bigger than his size."
The rebounding margin was one of two stats that stood out to Benson.
The other? His team's 18 of 24 shooting at the free-throw line and 9 of 19 from the 3-point arc.
Enter French, a 6-2 senior who came off the bench and made 5 of 6 attempts at the line. He also chipped in 6 assists with zero turnovers, contributing greatly to that high 3-point percentage by keeping the ball moving and finding the open man.
"I view myself as a very unselfish player," French said. "I like getting my teammates involved. My teammates did a great job of getting to open spots. I was able to find them and they knocked down their shots."
Huntley (8-2), the fifth seed in the tournament, will play No. 4 seed Naperville Central at 3 p.m. Friday in the quarterfinals. The teams also met in last year's tournament with the Red Raiders winning by a point.
Schurz (5-5) never led in Thursday's game but also gave the Red Raiders problems at times with its full-court press and transition offense. Every quarter was tight until Huntley's 6-1 run to start the fourth quarter opened up a double-digit lead it held the rest of the way.
Ryan Sroka had the hot hand in the first half, scoring 19 of his game-high 24 points including a stretch of 11 straight in the second quarter with a trio of 3-point shots. Huntley led 37-33 at halftime.
Schurz scored six quick points in the third quarter to trim a 43-35 deficit to 43-41 as Benson called time. He told his team to play its game and not get caught up in the frantic style Schurz prefers.
Ryan Crosby came out of that timeout and sank a corner 3-pointer. He hit another from the same spot moments later, then Fletcher assisted Sroka for a 3 and a 52-43 lead.
"Their pressure hurt us a little early but then we got used to it as the game went on," French said.
Uchenna Egekeze added 20 points, 7 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. Crosby scored 9 points and Ryan Vrugt 6.
"We have 10 seniors which is unheard of," Benson said. "They all play together well and know their roles. We knew (Schurz) was going to be tough. To keep them in the 50s is good."
Kyel Shelton paced Schurz with 16 points.