Maine W. rues missed chance

As several Warriors angrily walked by, some slamming a locker room door nearby, Maine West coach Erik McNeill had to ask a reporter to repeat his question.

McNeill apologized, saying his players distracted him.

However, his mind was also likely replaying a nightmarish fourth quarter that left the Warriors wondering what might have been in a 42-37 Central Suburban loss to Niles North.

"We are angry because we don't get that many opportunities like this," said Adis Kadiric (9 points, 6 steals). "Just to give it away just leaves us feeling angry and leaves us feeling disappointed in ourselves, more than anything."

Junior Tommy Solis (6 points, 2 blocks) worked hard for a layup to give the Warriors (2-8, 0-3) a 35-30 lead with 5:08 left, but Niles North finished by scoring 12 of the game's final 14 points.

Maine West led most of the game after shooting 12-of-22 from the field through three quarters. But in the final period, the Warriors hit only 2-of-10 shots and finished the game with 15 turnovers.

"Turnovers led (us) to being mad and frantically running around," Kadiric said. "That's what we were talking about (after the game). We just need to slow it down and take the shots that are right for us to take. We just weren't taking the right shots and, obviously, those aren't going to fall."

Niles North (3-5, 2-1) also struggled with turnovers, coughing up 16 overall and 12 in the second half. The Vikings were also held to 35 percent shooting in the first half but hit 9-of-12 second-half shots.

"It's a horrible feeling, absolutely horrible feeling," McNeill said. "I thought we did some good things to take control of the game. But we couldn't take care of the ball on the offensive end, and we didn't dig in and work hard on the defensive end to get stops when we needed to."

Sargon Youssef had 8 points while leading scorer Jimmy Orlowski was limited to a pair of 3s, both in the first half, on 8 attempts from downtown.

David Kushnir scored 12 and Mark Green added 8 points and 6 rebounds for Niles North.