Brown's 25 lead WW South to victory
When your team's outside shooting goes cold, you must find other ways to win games.
Wheaton Warrenville South's boys basketball team did just that Wednesday night, offsetting lackluster 3-point shooting with hard-nosed pressure defense and tenacious rebounding during its 70-51 DuKane Conference triumph over host St. Charles East (1-4, 1-2).
Senior guard Parker Brown paced the Tigers with a game-high 25 points and 12 rebounds while adding 3 of the team's 16 steals. The 6-footer tallied 16 of his points in the first half when the Tigers (5-2, 2-1) raced to a 39-19 halftime advantage.
"We're not shooting it well at all, but we just come out and push the ball," said Brown. "We get on the boards and dive for loose balls."
Leading 23-17 midway through the second quarter, the Tigers seized control by outscoring the Saints 16-2 over the final 3:45 of the period while building a 20-point advantage.
Tyler Fawcett, who finished with 14 points, highlighted by a pair of 2-hand dunks late in the contest, began the run with a bucket inside before Brown drained a step-back 3-pointer to make it 28-17. Brown knocked down another 3-pointer from the top of the key at the halftime buzzer.
"You find someone who plays harder than he (Brown) does, and I'd be surprised," said Tigers coach Mike Healy. "It was nice to see him knock down a couple (3-point) shots. He played really well."
Yonatan Algawerash scored 10 points, Rourke Robinson added 7 points, and Danny Healy contributed 2 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals for the Tigers, who connected on just 3 of 23 of their 3-point attempts but forced 18 turnovers and won the rebounding battle, 42-20.
"We're a smaller group but we want to kind of be known for getting down and dirty and on the floor," said Brown. "Every loose ball - we want to get it."
"We're just fighting ourselves a little bit offensively, shooting it," said Healy, whose team faces Wheaton North Saturday. "They've been really good about focusing on not letting that affect the way we play defensively.
"When you're not shooting it well, you've got to do other stuff and I thought our guys did a lot of other stuff tonight."
Saints coach Patrick Woods agreed.
"I thought we played a real good first quarter and then we had too many turnovers in the last four minutes (of the first half)," said the coach. "What really hurt us was the rebounding because we had a number of stops but just didn't get the boards."
Zach Masud led the Saints with 13 points, while Trent Warren and Kelton McCaslin added 9 points apiece.
The Saints host St. Charles North Saturday.