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Better effort but still a loss for Elgin

Elgin senior Mike Miller was not giving in even though he was giving up nearly a foot and at least 70 pounds to Richmond-Burton sophomore Joey St. Pierre on Tuesday night.

The 5-foot-10 Miller drew a charging foul to start the game on the 6-foot-9, 250-pound St. Pierre in the second round of the Richmond-Burton/Johnsburg Boys Varsity Basketball Tournament. Miller's aggressiveness and fearlessness sparked a 30-20 rebounding advantage that showed the Maroons did not come up short in terms of effort despite falling 51-35 to the taller Rockets in Richmond.

"I felt it was much better than (Monday)," Miller said of the Maroons' effort compared to their 59-33 opening loss to Wauconda. "We still have to work harder and keep rotating defensively and keep moving forward.

"I felt like (Monday) put a drive in us and we knew we were better than that. We were more capable of what we gave out (Monday) night."

St. Pierre scored a game-high 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting and had 6 rebounds but Miller did his best to make it difficult. He had 3 steals to help put the Maroons (0-2) in a 14-14 tie 1:32 before halftime.

"Mike Miller defended his butt off," Elgin coach Mike Sitter said of what he also saw as a much better overall effort. "I'm proud of Mike and he gave everything he had tonight.

"He does all of the dirty work. He's an effort kid and he's been that way his whole career."

And Miller is ready for more battles with bigger players inside for a team with no starters taller than 6-2.

"It just brings out the inner defense of me," Miller said. "I've always played big people. You have to fight through it. It's competition and you have to fight."

A tiebreaking 3-pointer by sophomore Blaine Bayer and consecutive turnovers to end the half led to layups by 6-4 Sam Kaufman and 6-5 Reggie Banks (12 points). That was the start of the Rockets (1-1) hitting 9 consecutive shots in a 20-5 tear.

They also used their 1-2-2 full-court pressure to score 25 points off 25 Elgin turnovers.

"In the first half I thought we took good shots but they didn't go in and you're going to have halves like that," said R-B coach Brandon Creason. "It was good to see the defensive effort, after we shot like we did to hold them to 15 points."

Sitter also thought junior point guard Desmond Douglas, who scored a team-high 8 points, made some positive strides by taking better care of the ball.

Junior Lavion Baldwin only scored 4 points and Sitter kept him on the bench the first quarter and most of the second half.

Elgin will play its final pool play game at 5:30 p.m. Friday against Crystal Lake South (1-1).

"If we put that together a lot more will come out of us," Miller said of combining the physical and mental effort.

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