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Vernon Hills shoots like a champion

It was the Night of Champions at Vernon Hills on Friday night.

All of the successful teams of the 2011-12 seasons were brought back and saluted for their various athletic accomplishments.

And just maybe the boys basketball team was a tad jealous of all of the other Cougars teams. Instead of pouting, coach Matt McCarty's team may have set a school record during the 66-35 rout of visiting Antioch.

The Cougars (6-6) landed 15 3-pointers spread out over eight shooters.

McCarty has seen a great number of games at Vernon Hills and he couldn't recall that many treys going through the nets.

Five fell in the first quarter as the Cougars rolled out to a 21-10 first quarter lead. Four more came in the second quarter from four different players as the halftime lead was 42-20.

Surprisingly, there were some Vernon Hills players who did not score from 3-point range. That included senior TJ Flis, who had 11 rebounds and maybe the hustling play of the game. At the start of the second quarter, Flis was spotted diving for a loose ball near the Antioch bench. He knocked over a couple of chairs and saved the ball for his team.

Even Flis was amazed at how many shots were successful.

“Everything kept going in,'' Flis said.

McCarty took a few minutes to salute the play of Flis.

“He's been doing this all year long,'' McCarty said.

And then the coach got back to the school-record talk.

“That has to be a record,'' McCarty said. “I don't remember 15 threes. The referee asked me if we had anyone who had missed one.”

Senior Stephen Curry led all scorers with 15 points. He had 3 3s.

“I haven't seen that before but our team has some really good shooters,''

Curry said. “We work on it almost every practice.”

Antioch (1-9) was essentially out of the game by halftime, but the third quarter really put the game away. Anthony Formella's 3 beat the third-quarter clock by 12 seconds. That was Antioch's lone field goal of the period. In the meantime, Curry hit a pair of 3s and had help in that department from both Nate Rathod and Michael Mariella.

Antioch coach Jim White tried his best to slow down the 3-point express of Vernon Hills.

“We tried three different defenses,'' White said. “And a couple of different zones. We would close out on their dribble and they would shoot over us.”

Antioch's last lead of the contest (9-7) came late in the first quarter on a rebound bucket from Ryan Weber. Vernon Hills then went on a 14-1 run to close out the quarter.

Curry, Rathod and Mariella led the 3 -point parade with three treys each.

Dylan McNamara had a pair of threes. Joining in the long-range attack were three Antioch shooters. Anthony Marsiglio, Addellatif Hamza and Formella all had two 3-pointers.

  Vernon Hills’ Stephen Curry pushes the ball upcourt after grabbing a defensive rebound against Antioch on Friday at VH. George LeClaire/gleclaire@dailyherald.com
  Vernon Hills’ Renton Fulton drives the lane against Antioch at Vernon Hills on Friday. George LeClaire/gleclaire@dailyherald.com
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