Schaumburg too much for Streamwood
The dunk is basketball's exclamation point.
Schaumburg's boys basketball team amassed 5 of them - getting 2 apiece from seniors Nicholas Doroskin and DeJaunte Wilson, plus 1 from senior Fabian Baez - Saturday afternoon and emerged with an 66-38 defeat of visiting Streamwood in nonconference action.
Emphatic, indeed.
"Hey, how much time do you guys usually work on dunking at the end of practice?" Schaumburg coach Wade Heisler shouted to a Saxon in the team room, briefly interrupting a postgame interview.
"About 10 minutes," the Saxon replied.
"My guess is that they'd much prefer to work on slams than on free throws," Heisler continued. "I'd say that's our season-high total for dunks in a game. A dunk gets the guys up, gets everybody excited, including our bench guys."
The 6-foot-3 Baez (14 points, 9 rebounds) opened the scoring with his stuff 65 seconds after the tip. Schaumburg (13-10) then secured a 12-3 lead on Wilson's first dunk and stretched the advantage to 16-5 in the first minute of the second quarter, thanks to Doroskin's first dunk.
The 6-5 Doroskin finished with a game-high 19 points to go with his 9 rebounds and 3 steals.
"We needed to come out and play our game, as well as execute well, against a team that likes to play fast," Doroskin said. "We did that for most of the game."
Schaumburg threatened to turn the contest into a laugher after Doroskin's second dunk widened the Saxons' advantage to 35-18 at the 6:53 mark of the third stanza. But Streamwood (4-19) got a whiff of hope after its 11-2 run in the same quarter lopped the lead to 37-29.
"We battled," Streamwood coach Kent Payne said. "We just couldn't make the shots when we needed to make them - that was the key. Great looks? We had those."
Schaumburg responded to Streamwood's surge decisively and quickly, capping the third quarter with a 7-2 burst and outscoring the visitors 22-7 in the final 8 minutes.
The 6-2 Wilson struck for 6 of his 17 points in the final quarter of the matinee, needing only 53 seconds to hit a pair of free throws and tally 2 field goals.
"Happy with the win, definitely," Heisler said. "I liked the heart we showed after that Streamwood run. It's a great, hardworking group of guys."
Jordan Tunis, a 5-9 freshman guard, also came down with 9 boards for Schaumburg, and Saxons reserve junior guard Joshua Carter tossed in 5 points.
Streamwood sophomore forward James Donato, who was held scoreless in the first quarter, netted a team-high 16 points. All he did was score the Sabres' final 4 points in the third quarter and all of his team's 7 points in the fourth.
Not bad for someone who suffered a dislocated knee on the eve of the season and played in his first game earlier this month.
"Crafty player," said Payne, who also received fine efforts from senior guard Richard Santiago (10 points), senior forward Cris Calderon (7 points) and senior guard Nicholas Trybulec (6 rebounds).