Schaumburg goes for the win, gets past Hoffman Estates

After visiting Hoffman Estates got off to a blazing 10-0 start at Schaumburg on Friday evening, Saxons coach Wade Heisler called a timeout with 4:50 left in the first quarter.

"I felt that our guys mentally were playing not to lose, instead of playing to win," Heisler said. "So we talked about getting back to basics."

That seemed to do the trick as Schaumburg claimed a 55-44 victory in MSL West play.

"It was a good talk," junior guard Zach Zolen said. "We were able to better communicate out there, and it showed."

Zolen helped lead the way back for Schaumburg (8-10, 3-3) with a feed to Michael Hodges for Schaumburg's first points of the game at the 3:19 mark.

Then, after scoring the first 2 of his game-high 12 points on a layup, Zolen connected with Dan Pyde inside for the second of his 4 assists. Zolen followed by hitting a 3 that pulled the Saxons within 15-9 by quarter's end.

The Saxons rolled off the first 8 points of the second quarter. That spurt was capped by a Zolen 3-point play that gave Schaumburg its first lead of the night at 17-16. They never again trailed.

A 7-1 Saxons run that featured 5 of senior guard Aaron Kline's 10 points opened up a 34-23 lead early in the third quarter.

Hoffman Estates (7-10,1-5) got no closer than 5 the rest of the way.

"I was pleased as to how we rose to the challenge after getting off to such a bad start," Heisler said. "We were able to get some good looks at the basket on offense while we got constant pressure on the defensive end, which led to some opportunities for us."

"It's the defense which leads to our offense succeeding," Zolen said.

The Hawks, who travel to face Grant on Saturday and DePaul Prep on Tuesday in nonconference play before returning to West Division play with a home date versus Palatine, were led in scoring by juniors Marshall Davis and James Allen (9 points apiece).

"I liked our game plan and we got off to a good start - but it's not how you start, it's how you finish," Hoffman Estates coach Luke Yanule said. "They made more plays than we did tonight, while we made too many mistakes. They're fixable, but collectively we are going to have to make those corrections together. We need to stop the bleeding."

Schaumburg returns to action with a nonconference home game Wednesday versus Bartlett.