A dandy victory for maturing Prospect
Prospect is a boys basketball team that analyst Dick Vitale would love, with its abundance of so-called Diaper Dandies.
Knights coach John Camardella starts three underclassmen and brings two more first off the bench. But they performed like seasoned veterans Friday in Prospect's 50-43 Mid-Suburban East win over visiting Elk Grove at Jean Walker Field House.
And they all contribute in their way. Frankie Mack is the 6-foot-2 sharpshooting leading scorer, and as he found his groove throughout the game, he helped the Knights pull away in the second half from what was a 34-33 lead after three.
Mack hit a 3-pointer and was 3 of 3 at the foul line in the final period. Sophomore point guard David Swedura put himself in double figures (10 points) with a fourth-quarter, press-breaker layup as Prospect opened the lead to 48-42. That was after Elk Grove's Kyle Zuba scored on a nice feed from Tyree Howard, and Bradley Hubly completed a traditional 3-point play after a nice drive to make it 46-42 with 0:28 left. Until then, Elk Grove had only scored 4 points in the whole quarter.
“We had to step up our defense,” Mack said after Hubly (11 points) and high-scorer Joey Gatziolis (13) were able to create and make their shots, especially in the first half, which ended at 25-25.
“You've got to credit Elk Grove,” Camardella said. “They hit some serious shots.”
But in the second half, they got very few second shots. That's because junior center Alec Busiel and senior forward Dan Marshall pulled down 11 and 10 rebounds, respectively. For the night, Camardella noted, Busiel finished with a line of 8 points, 11 rebounds and 3 of Prospect's 5 blocked shots.
After being outrebounded by a very athletic Elk Grove (6-5, 2-1) team in the first half, Prospect out-boarded the Grens 24-10 in the second half alone.
Elk Grove coach Anthony Furman felt his club missed several opportunities.
“I thought we came out really great in the second half,” he said, referring to grabbing the lead on Gatziolis' basket on Fulton Wingba feed. “We had chances to take it out to 6 or 8, but we didn't. It's not like (Prospect) had a run on us.”
Elk Grove shot 5-for-21 from the field in the second half.
Credit a lot of that to Prospect's depth.
“We go 10, 11 guys deep,” said Mack. “We can rely on our bench.”
On Friday night, that primarily meant the pesky defense of speedy Antonio Gardner and grinder Grant Whitebloom, both of whom provided a lift. Camardella said the defense made the difference against the Grens.
And if Prospect can “limit turnovers and make better decisions on offense,” as Mack suggested, the quickly maturing Knights will be even better.