South Elgin bounces back to top Johnsburg
The South Elgin boys basketball team proved to be a resilient group on Monday. After losing by 22 points to Barrington in the opening round of the Hinkle Holiday Classic at Jacobs on Saturday, the Storm bounced back with a strong start against Johnsburg and then held on for a 56-49 victory.
Matt Smith led South Elgin with 16 points. Justin Howard added 11.
"Our big thing is we need to bring energy and intensity every game and maintain it every possession," South Elgin coach Matt Petersen said. "I thought we came out and did that in the first half. We used our athleticism to put ourselves in some advantageous situations."
Smith scored 10 of his points in the first quarter with 3 layups, a 3-pointer, and a free throw to help the Storm jump out to a 20-12 lead.
"We were coming off a couple losses, so we knew it was important to come out with a lot of intensity and get off to a good start," Smith said. "We had a good walk-through in practice this morning and it carried over to the game."
The Storm opened the second quarter with a 9-1 run to extend the lead to as much as 29-13.
South Elgin shot 15-of-25 from the field in the first half and led 38-27 at halftime. Howard had three 3-pointers in the first half. While Logan Atkins scored 9 points in the second quarter.
However, the Storm struggled offensively in the second half. They scored just 18 points and shot 5-of-19 (26 percent) from the field.
That allowed Johnsburg to crawl back into contention, but the Storm came up with enough big plays not to let the Skyhawks get closer than 5 points.
Collin Uveges and Anthony Lynch both converted 3-point plays in the third quarter after Johnsburg had trimmed the lead to 7.
With the score 45-40 early in the fourth quarter the Storm responded with a pair of free throws from Lynch and a bucket on a drive to the basket by Smith.
"They applied a little more pressure on defensively and kind of took us out of our flow," said Petersen. " And we just weren't cutting to the basket with as much veracity. But we did come up with enough big plays to not let them get too much momentum. Being able to get those baskets at the rim when we were struggling from the outside against their zone was huge for us."
Tanner Kreassig had 18 points to lead Johnsburg (4-7 overall, 0-2 in the tournament).
"We've had problems with slow starts this year," Johnsburg coach Mike Toussaint said. "They came out with a lot of intensity and took it to us and once again we dug ourselves a hole we couldn't get out of."