Focused Cary-Grove rebounds with win over Huntley
The Cary-Grove boys basketball team's theme in Saturday's 54-38 victory over visiting Huntley was applying a lesson learned.
The Trojans entered the week feeling good about their direction, having won 7 of their previous 9 games. That momentum was halted Tuesday when they absorbed a 46-39 loss at Dundee-Crown, which to that point had won 3 games all season and was stuck in the FVC cellar.
The Carpentersville surprise forced the Trojans to reexamine their approach against teams with losing records. That's why Cary-Grove (13-9, 8-5) took an all-out approach against Huntley (6-18, 4-8) from the opening tip.
Following two days of intense practice preparation, the Trojans hit the court with a telephoto lens-like focus. Cary-Grove bolted to a 13-2 advantage after a quarter, led 25-14 at the half and 44-22 heading to the final period.
Through three quarters Cary-Grove sank 17 of 35 shots (48.6 percent).
"We just made shots and making shots is the game," Cary-Grove first-year coach Adam McCloud said. "We shot the heck out of the ball. We're not good enough to play anybody and have an average mindset. So we were pretty focused in practice for two days."
Cary-Grove senior guard Zach Beaugureau led all scorers with 17 points on 8-of-11 shooting, senior forward Matt McCumber scored 10 and junior guard Luc Bressett canned a pair of 3-pointers in a 9-point effort.
"We knew they were going to come out and switch the screens hard so we've been working on pushing screens," said Bressett, who contributed a 4-point play at the first-quarter buzzer. "We just knew if were able to hit our shots we'd be able to win this one."
Huntley turned the ball over 11 times in the first half while shooting 5 of 16 from the field. The Red Raiders made their best push early in the fourth quarter. Trailing by 24, senior guards Matthew Seng and Michael Parks and junior guard Cory Knipp each sank 3-pointers in a 2:22 span. Huntley eventually trimmed the deficit to 13 but drew no closer.
"I thought our half-court defense was OK," Huntley coach Will Benson said. "The problem is we couldn't get into it all the time because of all the turnovers and we didn't shoot it well. Our kids always play hard, which is not easy to do when you don't shoot the ball consistently, which has been our problem all year."
Senior guard Stephen Browne paced Huntley with 12 points while Knipp and junior guard Devin Borring added 6 points apiece.
Cary-Grove won the rebounding battle 21-18, but the Trojans will have to be at their best Tuesday when they welcome FVC co-leader Jacobs (22-1, 11-1) and Cameron Krutwig, one of the most prolific rebounders in area history. He averages 13.9 rebounds per game.
"We're just looking to maybe pull off an upset," Beaugureau said.