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Elgin CC advances to national tournament

Invincible.

It might be the best word to describe the Elgin Community College men's basketball team right now. There doesn't seem to be anything the Spartans can't overcome and on Saturday there was nothing getting in the way of the Spartans making history.

First, ECC lost its leading scorer Chris Benjamin in the NJCAA Division III Region IV semi finals to an ACL injury. It didn't matter. The Spartans still rolled to the Region IV title earlier this week.

On Saturday in the District II championship game against Lorain County College Community College from Ohio the Most Valuable player in the Region IV tournament, ECC's Homer Denson, was held scoreless in the first half. That didn't phase the Spartans either.

Instead ECC kept rolling right to a dominating 86-68 win in front of a big crowd at the Spartan Event Center to earn the school's first ever trip to the National tournament in Rochester, Minn.

"I might have been running for a side door to sneak out of," ECC coach Reed Nosbisch said when asked what he might have thought a couple weeks ago about his team's chances in this game without Benjamin and Denson being shutout in the half. "Chris was such an important part of this team, but it has just been amazing how everyone else has stepped up. These guys are just beginning to realize how good they actually are."

The Spartans were led by a couple of Larkin grads in Juwan Stewart, who had a team-high 19 points, and Charles Sanders, who added 14 points.

The loss of Benjamin has meant a change in roles for Stewart, but he has adjusted just fine.

"Without Chris we've had to step up and play as brothers, Stewart said. "We all needed to do more. I had to switch to three spot which I wasn't that use to. I've been playing at the four. But I'll do any thing that helps the team. That's what it's been about is playing together as a team. It is unbelievable because so many people were doubting that we could still do this. It's just great to be a part of history."

The Spartans (29-5) jumped out to a 13-2 lead. Bartlett grad Jordan Anderson played a big part in the Spartans early success with 9 points early on.

ECC continued to build on its lead and was up 38-24 at halftime. Connor Boesch (Huntley) had 8 points in the first half, including a pair of 3-pointers. He finished with 10. Stewart also had 8 points in the first half.

Stewart and Sanders helped to put the game out of reach in the second half. Stewart had 11 second half points and Sanders had 10 points. Denson also got going in the second half with 13 points. He also finished with 20 rebounds.

The Spartans' biggest lead was 28 points.

"This is a huge accomplishment for the school and it's great to be a part of it," Sanders said. "It's taken a lot of hard work and sweat to get here, but it was all worth it."

The Spartans defense held Lorain (17-12) to just 22 of 72 (31 percent) shooting from the field.

"I thought we did a great job defensively," Nosbisch said. "This is a team that was averaging over 91 points and we held them to 24 points in the first half. Smaller teams like this usaully give us problems, but we did a great job of staying with their shooters."

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