Gatziolis, Elk Grove turn it on against Schaumburg
Joey Gatziolis and Elk Grove's boys basketball team turned over Schaumburg 56-47 Tuesday in Elk Grove.
Gatziolis had 2 steals that turned into driving layups to help spark a 14-0 run late in the third quarter and into the early fourth quarter that broke the game open for the Grenadiers (6-4) in a Mid-Suburban League divisional crossover.
"Coach has always told us that good defense produces good offense," said Gatziolis, who finished with 20 points. "My teammates were getting me some good opportunities after they were pressuring the ball."
Elk Grove trailed 33-30 with 4:15 left in the third quarter when the Grens really turned up the defensive pressure. Employing their 1-3-1 trap, Elk Grove forced 6 turnovers to close out the quarter while Schaumburg missed two shots as well.
"We are playing a new defense this year," said Grens guard Tyree Howard. "We call it 'Syracuse.' It's our favorite defense. 'Man' is not a big thing for us right now. We are doing real well with what we are doing and causing lots of turnovers."
Those turnovers led to a huge spurt by the Grens as they got everyone on the court involved.
It began with a putback by Fulton Wingba and ended with a basket by Kyle Zuba on a feed from Stefan Pantovic that put the Grens up 44-33 with 7:07 to play. During that streak, Gatziolis had his 2 steals and baskets and Joey Lopez had a pair of buckets, including a 3.
"The end of the third quarter was huge for us," Elk Grove coach Anthony Furman said. "Our runs really helped us out. I thought we showed some maturity when we needed it."
Despite finishing with 23 turnovers, Schaumburg (1-7) almost was able to overcome the miscues. The Saxons had that 33-30 lead despite turning the ball over 14 times to that point in the contest. Schaumburg had converted 13 of their first15 shots.
"They ran their scheme well with their cutters," Furman said. "They hit a lot of high-percentage shots."
But first-year Schaumburg coach Wade Heisler said the turnovers killed his team's chances.
"It was a huge problem," Heisler said. "We need to make sure that we possess it and take care of it at all moments, and we just did not do a good job of taking care of it tonight."
Schaumburg turned the tables on Elk Grove, forcing 3 turnovers in the late moments of the game to pull to within 51-45 with 1:15 to play. But Howard and Gatzliolis converted 5 free throws down the stretch to put the game away.
"We haven't seen a 2-3 defense all season and we saw it the whole game tonight," Furman said. "I though we did a good job of being patient against it tonight. We did enough good things to win tonight."
Wingba had 13 points for Elk Grove while Howard, Zuba and Bradley Hubley each had 6 points and Lopez chipped in 5 points. Kameron Powell led Schaumburg with 14 points, Aaron Kline came off the bench to score 11 points while Jason Schoo and Eric Rushing both had 7 points.