T.F. North tops Larkin 60-40
It wasn't enough to deliver a win, but Larkin coach Larry Hight was pleased to see his team push and shove and hang with a huge Thornton Fractional North team in the second half of Friday's Downers Grove South holiday tourney action.
After a first half in which the Royals (0-2) fell behind 31-15 and turned the ball over 15 times, it looked like the Meteors (1-1) would push around Larkin and breeze to a victory. Instead, the Royals pushed back and made things much more interesting in the second half before eventually falling 60-40 to a T.F. North program that won 24 games last season and boasts a handful of players 6-foot-4 or taller.
"I don't care what the score is, I feel a lot better about this game than I did with Wednesday's game," said Hight, whose team dropped its opener to Hinsdale Central in the first round of tourney play on Wednesday. "Today I saw a lot of stuff I liked. They're a real physical team and when we saw they weren't going to call it (tight), we came out in the second half and we pushed back. There was no lack of intensity on our part in the second half."
Unfortunately for the Royals, T.F. North was just too big, too quick and too determined to bounce back from its season-opening loss to Downers Grove South. Senior guard Jeremey Leonard dropped in a trio of 3-pointers while scoring 15 of his game-high 19 points in the first two quarters. Anthony Garth (15 points, 8 rebounds) and Marcus Deloney (12 points, 8 rebounds) each used their 6-5 frames to create tough match-ups for the Royals inside, and Deloney also fired up his team with a pair of slam dunks.
The Royals committed just 5 turnovers in the second half and Jeff Saurbaugh and Messiah Lewis combined to score 23 points after the intermission. Saurbaugh had 5 field goals in the second half to finish with 16 points, while Lewis added 7 of his 8 points in the final two quarters.
We were just fighting. They were pushing us around so we gave it back," said Saurbaugh. "They were real big and they wore us down. But our intensity was up and no one gave up. Not at all."