Conant 43, Palatine 34

Neither team lit up the scoreboard. The defenses made sure of that.

But when push came to shove, Conant's Mid-Suburban West-leading boys basketball team found a way to put away division foe Palatine 43-34 at William Perry Gymnasium on Friday.

"You're going to have nights when you struggle to score," said Conant coach Tom McCormack. "(Palatine) came out and got a lot of pressure early. We were fortunate to hit a couple of shots."

Palatine coach Ed Molitor surprised most everyone by going without his two big men -- 6-foot-9 Josh Rustman and 6-6 Monroe Brooks -- in the starting lineup, and the Pirates kept the game tight with their defense.

"I thought we'd take better care of the ball and play better defense," Molitor said. "We had good ball pressure, but we left too many shooters open. We gave up seven 3-pointers."

Both big men eventually made their presence felt, and Rustman, who saw his first action in the second quarter, led Palatine with 11 points.

"They didn't do anything different," Rustman said. "It was just the usual tough Conant defense. They're in your face and don't let you do what you want to do."

Conant led after every quarter, but it wasn't until Tom Sotos (11 points) was fouled on a rebound of his own miss and converted the 3-point play with 1:08 remaining that the Cougars (14-4, 6-1) had some breathing room at 38-29.

Rustman and Mark Knoeppel each scored 5 points in the fourth quarter, when Palatine (6-12, 1-6) cut the lead to 5 points once and 6 points on three occasions.

Each time, however, Conant responded, with the final 5 points coming from the foul line in the last half minute.

Jeff Keegan and Sotos led the Cougars with 11, and Tim Gilhooly scored 10 points off the bench, including three 3s.

"We've been in a lot of those situations, and we're able to do what we have to do to win," said Jeff Keegan (11 points). "When we got the ball inside, they had some guys sagging on us. We were able to kick it out and had some open 3s."