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Hampshire notches first win

It's always a good feeling to get that first victory under your belt.

After dropping the season opener to South Elgin 89-61 on Monday, Hampshire's boys basketball team bounced back with a strong all-around effort to claim a 59-38 victory over host Sycamore Wednesday night at the Leland G. Strombom Holiday Tournament.

Ten Whip-Purs found their way onto the score sheet, paced by 13 points and a pair of emphatic slam dunks from sophomore Collin Woods. Nathan Cork dropped in a trio of 3-pointers in a 10-point performance while Drew Dalby added 8 points.

"It feels good. The locker room has a good vibe to it right now," said Hampshire coach Ben Whitehouse.

"We have depth, which makes practicing really nice. Some nights it might be one, the next night it could be another kid, but the whole thing is to get 18 guys playing together, playing for one purpose and we'll be successful."

"We came out very energetic and we changed up our game plan a little bit," added Woods. "We knew the ballhandlers they had were a little quick, so we had to switch up the defense."

The Whip-Purs (1-1) forced 6 first quarter turnovers and seized a 13-5 advantage.

They stretched the advantage to 30-10 with five minutes left in the first half behind an impressive 13-1 run that included 6 straight points from Jon Westerlund, but the Spartans (0-2) answered with an 11-point spurt of their own.

A.J. Bishop finally stemmed the tide with a trifecta and the Whips carried a 34-21 lead into the half.

Hampshire maintained its double-digit lead the rest of way thanks to a solid team defensive effort and good ball movement on the offensive end.

"We wanted to focus on communicating defensively, proper rotations, and finishing on offense," Whitehouse said. "We had a good day of practice and a real good shootaround this afternoon and came out and competed hard. It's what you want to see."

"Our offense was definitely flowing a lot better than Monday. We just wanted to get a lot more people involved in the game and it felt really good to come away with the win," Woods said.

Hampshire takes on Sandwich (1-1) Friday at 4:30 p.m. in a likely battle for second place in pool play.

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