Elk Grove gets first win

There was nothing enjoyable about this season's first 10 postgame trips to the locker room for Elk Grove.

But as senior point guard Kevin McDonald got ready to open the door for the 11th time, he smiled, high-fived assistant coach Tim Gera and shouted, "One and 10, baby."

There was no wild celebration by the Grenadiers on Saturday afternoon. There was plenty of satisfaction as they earned their first victory with a 63-52 comeback over Johnsburg in their opener of Jacobs' Golden Eagle Classic boys basketball tournament in Algonquin.

"It's a huge relief and good to get off our back," McDonald said after scoring 13 of his career-high 17 points in the second half.

"It feels good," said senior Billy Hubly, who scored a game-high 22 points, had 6 rebounds and 2 assists.

"Every day at practice, nobody gives up," said Elk Grove junior Matt Martinski. Everybody's confidence keeps getting higher and higher."

Which gave first-year Elk Grove (1-10) coach Anthony Furman something good to talk about although his voice was shot from a cold and a Friday night loss to Prospect.

"This team has been scratching," Furman said after his first varsity head coaching victory. "We're excited and it feels good to get the first one."

The 6-foot-3 Martinski scored 11 of his 13 points after intermission and with Andy Larson helped slow 6-7, 225-pound Johnsburg (5-4) sophomore C.J. Fiedorowicz after a monster start.

Junior J.J. Lastovich scored 7 points and senior Joe Baxter scored big points with his hustle for 9 rebounds.

"Everyone contributed and everyone was working as a team," Martinski said. "That felt great."

The Grens had an all-too-familiar feeling with deficits of 13-2, 23-10 and 38-28 with 5:14 left in the third. Fiedorowicz scored 10 points in the first 9½ minutes on 5-for-6 shooting.

Martinski and Larson started denying Fiedorowicz the ball more as he missed 8 of his last 10 shots to finish with 14 points. And the Grens went right at him offensively.

"We had people attacking," McDonald said. "The draw and kick was huge and no one was intimidated."

The result was an 18-2 tear capped by Martinski and McDonald shots over Fiedorowicz for a 46-40 lead.

"Overall we played really smart and didn't force anything," said Hubly, who kept the Grens close with 2 of his four 3s and their first 14 second-quarter points. "We would get down a big-time amount of points and try to get it back on one possession, and today we didn't do that."

Johnsburg got within 46-45 with 7:18 left on Fiedorowicz's reverse layup. Martinski countered with a drive over Fiedorowicz to start an 11-point run that put the Grens on their way to their long-awaited victory.

"It was definitely big just believing we can do that," Hubly said. "After they made the little run everyone said 'We're not going to let them come back,' and we didn't."

Bartlett 74, Lindblom 51: Bartlett showed no fear of the unknown when it scored the first 10 points against Lindblom on Saturday.

But the Hawks knew it wasn't as easy as their 74-51 victory might seem in their Jacobs Golden Eagle Classic boys basketball tournament opener in Algonquin.

"The score doesn't say anything," said Bartlett 6-foot-9 senior center Kamil Janton. "They're a good team, especially on defense. They put some pressure on us."

Lindblom (6-5) was able to get within 20-19 with 5:30 left in the first half.

But Bartlett (7-3) was able to start distancing itself from its Chicago Public League counterparts in the second half en route to its fifth consecutive victory.

"A team like that always scares you because they're so athletic and so unknown," said Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith of not having a chance to scout Lindblom. "We were able to hand their pressure and get the ball to the big guys to score."