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Bibbs brothers propel West Chicago past East Aurora

West Chicago's boys basketball victory over East Aurora provided a bonus. The Wildcats won handily and also left things to work on.

Without playing its best West Chicago still cruised to a 78-62 decision on the road at Ernie Kivisto Gymnasium. Improving to 8-1 overall and 2-0 in the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division, it's the Wildcats' best start since opening 12-0 in 2004-05.

Wildcats senior Mikey Bibbs and junior brother Tai Bibbs tied for game honors with 23 points apiece. Jourdan Habecker scored 10 of his 11 points in the fourth quarter to keep East Aurora (2-5, 0-2) chasing.

"We're happy with a win, always going to celebrate a victory," said West Chicago coach Bill Recchia. "We're happy with that, but at the same time we know that was not our best effort tonight."

As Recchia noted, in the first quarter West Chicago dictated action to make 8 of 15 first-quarter shots with 12 rebounds and just 2 turnovers for a 23-9 advantage. East Aurora then applied pressure and capitalized on 8 Wildcats turnovers to get within 36-25 at halftime.

That pattern repeated. West Chicago's 23-point third quarter was answered by a 27-point fourth-quarter flurry by East Aurora, which was led by Michael Stewart with 16 points, 11 from Traevon Brown and 10 from Ron McBride before he fouled out with 5:21 remaining.

West Chicago led 65-35 with just over six minutes left in the fourth quarter.

"We talk about it every day, how we're our biggest opponents and we've just got to play our game - all game, every game," said Wildcats senior guard Peter Dolan, who scored 6 points with 6 rebounds and 4 assists.

"We missed a lot of box outs, they scored a lot of second-chance points. We had a lot of turnovers. Those are just things we need to work on, but if we keep playing our game we'll be fine," he said.

Be it driving to the hoop or hitting outside jumpers the Bibbs boys looked pretty fine. Mikey converted two three-point plays and scored 10 third-quarter points, with Tai scoring 8 in the quarter. Tai Bibbs added 6 rebounds, 5 steals for the game.

"We want to make the game our pace, we don't want the other team to put us at their pace," Mikey Bibbs said. "If we're in our pace we have a good chance to win the game, a better chance to score, better stops.

"Our defense is usually very good. We gave up 62 points today, that's not characteristic of us."

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