Downers Grove South closes out Palatine

Downers Grove South's boys basketball team closed the back door and left Palatine out in the cold 70-55 in the second round of the Jack Tosh Tournament at York in Elmhurst on Monday.

"We wanted to keep them in front of us and play them after the catch," Downers Grove South coach Kris Olson said. "We extended ourselves way too much in the first half and we were getting beat by back-door cuts."

Downers Grove South. (9-3) moves into the quarterfinals against Conant at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Palatine (8-4) exploited Downers Grove South early with its cutting offense as the Pirates built a 35-32 lead at the half thanks to the ball work of Matt Ulrich, Chris Refka and Jovone Stricker.

The Mustangs then made that halftime adjustment, and it worked to perfection as Downers Grove South held Palatine scoreless for just over five minutes.

Meanwhile, the Downers Grove South offense was nearly unstoppable. The Mustangs ran off 17 unanswered points, hitting 6 for 8 from the field, including a pair of 3s, as they opened up a 49-35 lead with 3:03 left in the third quarter.

"It was characteristic of our good passing and cutting," said Sam Ebersold, who had 7 of his 24 points during that spurt. "We needed to keep our elbow plugs in. Because they are the type if you go out on them, they will go back door on you all day. We had to stay in our zones and keep them in front of us."

"I thought that we did a lot of good things in the first half," said Palatine coach Eric Millstone, whose team had its six-game winning streak snapped. "But a 23-4 quarter will kill you every time. We had some defensive lapses. But when you have the weapons that they have, that is not a lot of room for error."

Downers Grove South took advantage of its height advantage to work its inside and outside the game. The Mustangs shot a sizzling 69 percent (27-for-39) from the field, including eight 3-pointers.

"I thought our size would be an advantage to us," Olson said. "Our plan was to go inside with the ball. But when you can go inside-outside or outside-inside, it makes it so much easier to shoot because you are squared up to the basket."

TJ Clifford had 15 points for the Mustangs while 6-foot-9 Donovan Ferguson had 12 points, including a pair of dunks. Dennis Alibegovic added 11 points while Tyree Spencer came off the bench to score 8.

Sophomore Johnny O'Shea led Palatine with a career-high 24 points, including 4 three-pointers. Charlie Van Dyke had 12 points on 4 triples while Ulrich chipped in 9 points.

"We started out real well," O'Shea said. "We were up by 3 and then the third quarter came. We just lost our intensity and didn't have the help on defense."