Zion-Benton 50, Stevenson 35
Stevenson's Kevin Stineman drives past Zion's Ira Williams on Friday night in Lincolnshire.
A popular saying in sports is that, "It's not the way you start, but the way you finish."
But if the start is so wretched that it nearly buries you alive, then it really does matter.
Just ask the Stevenson boys basketball team.
Had it not been for Blake Ekenberg's harried 3-pointer that fell at the buzzer to end the first quarter, the Patriots would have had no points heading into the second quarter against visiting Zion-Benton.
As the game wore on, Stevenson managed to get its act together to finish much better than it started. But the damage done early on was just too much to completely overcome and Zion-Benton marched away with a 50-35 North Suburban Conference Lake Division win.
"It was a pretty bad start," said senior forward Dylan Richter, who was the only Stevenson player to reach double figures with 14 points. "We just couldn't get anything to fall. We couldn't get in sync offensively.
"They're a great team, but next time we've got to come better prepared."
The Zee-Bees, forecasted by many to win the division, improve to 6-0 overall. They were playing without starter Lenzell Smith, who missed his third straight game with a leg injury.
Stevenson, which got only a limited effort out of standout guard Kevin Stineman, drops to 3-2.
Stineman scored just 6 points and didn't start because he could barely stand to practice this week. He recently found out that he has a cyst on his knee that likely developed from overuse.
"It's basically like a capsule full of fluid between my bone and my ligament," Stineman said. "So I didn't really practice at all this week until Thursday, when I practiced just a little bit.
"It's just painful. Monday, I'm going in to get it checked out for the third time. I'm going to get a cortisone shot and then see how that plays out. The last option would be getting surgery on it to get it removed."
Stineman is hoping that the cortisone shot will temporarily numb the pain so that he can avoid having to undergo surgery during the season.
"I'm trying to help us out as much as I can right now," Stineman said. "But I can barely run. I'm very limited in what I can do."
Zion-Benton sure did limit what the Patriots did.
On the night, the Zee-Bees held Stevenson to an anemic 27 percent shooting clip from the field. Zion-Benton was so quick to every gap that Stevenson was often forced to settle for jump shots.
"It was just good defense for us," said Zion-Benton guard Rodney Clinkscales, who scored a team-high 14 points. Teammate Quintrell Love, in the lineup for Smith, added 13 points.
"We stuck together and had a plan and executed our plan," Clinkscales said. "The key to our defense is teamwork. We try to keep them out of the middle and make them shoot perimeter shots. We make them stay on the outside."
The Patriots, who were down by as many as 12 points in the second quarter, cut their deficit to 6 points (32-26) at the end of the third quarter.
But Zion-Benton opened the fourth quarter with a 12-4 run, and then hit a barrage of free throws to put the game away.
"Zion-Benton is tough," Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose said. "To get down to them like that, the ball was just rolling downhill.
"We came back, but then it was like we ran out of steam, ran out of energy. They're favored to win the conference this year for a reason."