With Bibbs out, South Elgin defeats West Chicago

The focus remained the same for the South Elgin boys basketball team on Thursday night even after it found out visiting opponent West Chicago would be without its standout guard Tai Bibbs, who was out with a twisted ankle suffered in a game last Friday.

The Storm, coming off four wins at the Rockford Jefferson Martin Luther King tournament over the weekend, continued to build on that momentum as they jumped out to a 15-2 lead against the Wildcats en route to a 67-61 win in Upstate Eight Valley Division action.

Logan Atkins led the way with 17 points for the Storm, including 5 during the opening run.

"I'm friends with Tai and I was looking forward to playing against him," Atkins said. "He's a great player. They say he's going to be OK and that's good. But hey, our job was still the same even if he wasn't out there. We weren't going to ease up and get complacent. We built some momentum at the tournament over the weekend and we wanted to keep that moving forward."

David Binion also had 5 points during the opening run. Binion and Atkins each had a 3-pointer in the first quarter. The Storm (13-5, 2-3) knocked down seven 3-pointers in the game. Noah Rohr had 3 of the 3-pointers, including a pair in the second quarter as the Storm continued to build a 36-20 halftime lead. Rohr finished with 15 points.

"We were preparing to play against (Bibbs)," South Elgin coach Brett Johnson said. "You always look forward to playing a kid like that because you know it's going to be a good challenge and good measuring stick for your team. But we stayed with our basic plan and I thought we played really well as a team. Logan did a good job distributing and we shot the ball well. Noah had a nice game for us."

South Elgin shot 56 percent (24-of-43) from the field and dominated the boards with a 35-17 rebounding advantage. The Storm were still up by 16 points, 56-40, early in the fourth quarter before West Chicago (13-5, 2-3) made a valiant comeback to pull to as close as 66-61 down the stretch. However, the comeback was a little too late.

"You can't spot a team 13 points in the first few minutes," West Chicago coach Bill Recchia said. "There's your ballgame right there. We just seem to lack energy from the start. I'd like to think there is a certain level of respect you learn from playing this game that every time you step on the floor you play at a level of intensity like it's your last game. I am proud of the way we fought back."

Jason Gimme had 18 points, including 4four 3-pointers to lead West Chicago in scoring. Sam Ricci added 16 points.