High-flying Scharnowski slams McHenry

Drew Scharnowski's first dunk, a two-handed job on a fast break at the 5:50 mark of the third quarter, apparently was just the warmup.

The next trip down the floor, the 6-foot-9 Burlington Central senior forward took a pass from guard Matthew Lemon and threw down in traffic, much to the approval of the home crowd.

But Scharnowski was far from done. He fired another one down two-handed, then capped the sequence with another crowd-pleaser courtesy of guard Nolan Milas.

Scharnowski picked up a steal near midcourt and flipped to Milas on a 2-on-0 break.

"After the pass, I heard Matthew Lemon yell, 'Lob!'," Milas said. "And I knew Drew was trailing me and I thought, 'I got to throw it,' I knew he was going to dunk it easily. He was on a roll. He dunks in practice like that, but in a game, I've never seen anything like that."

MIlas lobbed it off the backboard for another thunderous slam and Scharnowski was done for the night with 18 points, as the Rockets defeated McHenry 73-30 in their Fox Valley Conference boys basketball game Wednesday night.

Scharnowski, who will play at NCAA Division I Belmont, displayed his athleticism in the first half when he took the ball behind his back on a break and laid it in with his left (non-shooting) hand.

"I liked the (dunk) when Matthew passed it to me and I came down the lane," Scharnowski said. "I always have that mindset (of wanting to dunk)."

All eight of his third-quarter points were on dunks.

The Rockets (12-3, 5-1 FVC) were coming off winning the championship in the Plano Christmas Tournament and seemed to pick up right where they left off five days previous.

Central jumped to a 16-2 lead in the first quarter, suffocating McHenry (8-10, 1-6) with ball pressure out of its man-to-man defense to start, and later mixing in some zone.

"We wanted to speed up their ballhandlers and funnel it and we did a real good job with that," Rockets coach Brett Porto said. "They struggled to initiate any offense and we got a lot of tips and steals and that got us out running."

Central scored on mostly layups in the first quarter, then heated up from the outside in the second.

"We didn't get off the bus ready to play and certainly wanted nothing to do with their pressure and physicality," Warriors coach Chris Madson said. "Credit to them, they play with a ton of grit and toughness and we have to be better in those exact areas of the game."

The Rockets led 37-13 at halftime.

"We had a goal today and the rest of our games is to get 10 turnovers, and taking care of the ball and finishing when we have the opportunities," Scharnowski said.

Nick Gouriotis scored 11 and Lemon and Jake Johnson each hit two 3-pointers and scored 10. The Rockets were 20 of 30 from the field in the second and third quarters and scored 46 points.

"That was crazy," Scharnowski said.

Scharnowski's four dunks came within a stretch of 3:30. McHenry's Hayden Stone supplied one highlight for the Warriors with a dunk of his own after Scharnowski's second slam.

"When Drew crashes and cuts he's extremely difficult to guard," Porto said. "He's a special athlete."

Marko Visnjevac led McHenry with 10 points and Stone added eight.