Messer, Huskies stop determined Elk Grove

It was more than just another Mid-Suburban East boys basketball game Friday night at Hersey.

It was a reunion, of Hersey coach Steve Messer against the school from which he came, Elk Grove, a place he'd won 140 games.

It was an emotional get-together, as even the usually stoic Messer admitted after the game the pangs of going up against his coaching-teaching friends and former student-athletes on the other bench.

And it was a "no-quit" game, as both sides refused to yield, took the floor burn dives and the poundings under the basket in the melee for rebounds and loose balls.

"In the end," said Messer after Hersey's 58-46 win, "it's about the kids playing basketball. There's a lot of people (at Elk Grove) I really care about, but we're really proud of our kids."

And his Huskies (6-3, 3-0) gave him good reason. In the face of a resoundingly emotional effort from a winless (0-8, 0-3) Elk Grove team that is better than its record, his Huskies "never lost their composure," Messer said.

That was especially true when Elk Grove finally reduced a game-long double-digit deficit to 9 points midway through the fourth quarter and twice had the ball with a chance to get closer.

"There's 8 or 10 possessions we could have done better with," including those two, said first-year Elk Grove coach Anthony Furman. The others stretched from the first quarter into the second, when Hersey scored 9 straight points and opened up what turned out to be an insurmountable lead.

The Huskies leaped comfortably ahead as 6-foot-9 Luke Fabrizius put home a tip-in and high-scorer Griffin Dwyer (19 points) hit a 3.

The same pair came to the rescue in period four, Dwyer at the foul line and Fabrizius with a putback, after Elk Grove closed within 48-39 on Cory Cetkovic's hoop inside.

"We wanted to come out with a big victory for (coach Messer)," Dwyer said after the game. "(Elk Grove's) a hard-fighting team."

And it was a hard fight for Dwyer, who matched up opposite Billy Hubly (17 points), whose shooting sparked Elk Grove's rally.

"He's a great player," Dwyer said. "I was just trying to fight through the screens."

"He makes good decisions," Messer said of Dwyer. "He's played great defense."

But Messer also recognized the contributions of Andrew Petro and Demitriy Velikov, at point, who helped settle the team. They combined for Hersey's 17 bench points.

"It's always fun to go up against your old coach," said Hubly, one of many Elk Grove players who was all smiles in greeting Messer before the game and all appreciative handshakes and hugs with him afterward.

"They just don't give up," Messer said of his former players. "They're highly motivated."

"We're going to get a victory real soon," Hubly said. "We're working real hard in practice."

"The effort has been outstanding," said Furman, still a close friend of Messer. "We need to combine that with execution."