Depleted Kaneland loses 9th straight

When your starting lineup includes four players 5-foot-9 or under, rebounds are going to be difficult to come by.

An injury-depleted Kaneland boys basketball team kept DeKalb off-balance with a constant mixture of man and zone defenses, but the visiting Barbs hammered the Knights 28-11 on the boards and pulled away late for a 57-36 Northern Illinois Big 12 East win Friday night in Maple Park.

Kaneland played without leading scorer, 6-foot-3 junior Blake Feiza, and 6-foot-1 junior Jack Douglas, who were both injured during the Burlington Central MLK Classic.

Senior Dan Franck paced the Knights (4-15, 1-4) with 12 points while Rhett Espe and Jake Hed tallied 9 and 8 points respectively.

Michael Mitchell led all scorers with 19 points for DeKalb (13-6, 5-0) while 6-foot-6 forward Darvon Sisson collected 16 points, 6 rebounds and 5 blocks.

"We battled and we tried to throw some new things in this week. I think the kids played really hard, but we just don't have anybody to keep anybody off the boards," said Knights coach Joe Conroy.

"We threw a variety of zones at them and tried to mix it up, but they just killed us on the offensive boards," Franck said. "It was hard to rotate, get in position and box them out."

After DeKalb broke out to a 15-3 first quarter lead, Kaneland managed to get the Barbs into foul trouble and outscored them 28-27 in the middle two quarters.

In the third quarter, Matt Olson and Espe drained 3-pointers for the Knights and Franck's high-arching layup pulled them within 42-31.

Kaneland narrowed the gap to 45-36 on Hed's trifecta with just under seven minutes left, but DeKalb sealed the win by scoring the game's final 12 points.

"We got it down to nine points in the fourth quarter, and we had three empty trips in a row," Conroy said. "We needed to get it to five and then maybe there's a little more pressure."

"We had a couple of runs and we usually do, it's just that we have seven healthy guys and it's hard to keep the stamina up through four quarters," Franck said. "We just kind of ran out of gas in the fourth quarter."

Thanks to a bevy of close- range shots, DeKalb shot 68 percent from the field (25-for-37), but Kaneland stayed close by forcing 16 turnovers.

With games against Morris, Yorkville and Ottawa next week, the Knights are trying to find a way to snap a nine-game losing streak.

"We have to bond together now more than ever," Franck said. "Blake was a huge loss and Jack too. It's hard when you don't have any big guys."