Vernon Hills 64, Antioch 50

After a difficult week, Vernon Hills' boys basketball team was desperate for a little fun on Saturday night.

The Cougars finally got their kicks in a 64-50 victory over visiting Antioch.

The win gave Vernon Hills (10-10, 5-3 North Suburban Prairie Division) a double-digit win total for the first time since the 2000-01 season.

The victory also enabled the Cougars to get over a bummer of a home loss on Tuesday to division-leading North Chicago 84-46.

Senior center Kenny Rideout led all scorers with 27 points, as he victimized the Sequoit defense with a barrage of easy buckets. Rideout credited his teammates for their aggressive effort to feed him the ball.

"We've got a lot of guys who can drive the baseline, get in the gaps and they just drop it off to me," Rideout said.

Riaz Hoveydai scored 13 points, while leading the Cougars with 5 assists.

Though they eventually prevailed, the Cougars looked sluggish in the fist half. Antioch (1œ17, 1œ8) took a 29-26 lead into intermission and seemed capable of pulling off an upset.

"We stumbled a little bit in the first half," Rideout said. "We came in the second half with a lot of energy and we played that way for the rest of the third quarter."

Vernon Hills coach Matt McCarty said his team's second-half defensive intensity was the difference in the game.

"The energy level just wasn't quite there in the first half," McCarty said. "In the third quarter we got some turnovers, which led to some easy buckets."

Vernon Hills outscored Antioch 23-9 in that decisive third stanza. Freshman guard DaVaris Daniels scored 10 of his 19 points in the period. His layup and foul shot with 1:41 put Vernon Hills ahead by 11 points. After that play the Cougar lead never dipped below 10.

McCarty said he and his team understand where they fit into the Prairie Division hierarchy at the moment. But they won't be satisfied with their current third-place standing.

"I can see us being a second-place team," he said. "Obviously that's one of our goals and getting to double-digit wins was another one. So we're right there."

Senior guard Lamarr Pottinger led the Sequoits in scoring with 13 points, while senior Michael Powell added 12.

-- Andrew Peck

St. Joseph 52, Carmel 39: Carmel's boys basketball team looked like it might upset one of the better teams in the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

However, St. Joseph turned on its pressure defense to win 52-39 on Saturday night.

St. Joseph improved its record to 15-5 overall and 7-2 in the ESCC.

Carmel led 14-9 at the end of the first quarter, but shot only 1 of 9 and scored only 2 points in the second quarter, and trailed 19-16 at halftime.

"We felt that we had to put on the pressure and have (Carmel) run up and down the court, " St. Joseph coach Gene Pingatore said. "They shoot the ball so well and we had to get them tired. They weren't shooting the ball as well as they did in the first quarter."

The Chargers' Diamond Taylor and the Corsairs' Jordan Sivertsen (four 3-pointers) each scored 17 points.

"Diamond is our leading scorer," Pingatore said. "But we had to help him inside because they were doubling up on him."

David Dixon provided the help inside by scoring 13 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.

"We need to get that from him," Pingatore said. " He is our number two scorer and is one of our better board men. We need him to score from the inside to help Diamond on the outside."

DeAndre McCarney added 9 points for St. Joseph, which opened the third quarter with an 8-2 run to build a 37-22 lead.

"The coach told us to pick up the intensity," Dixon said. "So we came out ready to play in the third quarter and we had a big win tonight."

Carmel tried to rally back with a 10-2 run in the beginning of the fourth.

The Corsairs David Venegoni (13 points) opened with a jumper and followed with a steal and a layup to bring the Corsairs within 37-26.

After St. Joseph scored two points, Sivertsen popped in two 3s in a row to make the score 39-32 with less than five minutes left.

But that's the closest Carmel got, as the Chargers shut the door with a 6-2 run.

"We went flat and didn't shoot well," Sivertsen said. "They took it to us and made a nice run."

Carmel fell to 4-19 and 1-8.

"I thought we battled pretty hard in the fourth quarter," Carmel coach Jon Baffico said. "We cut it down to seven, then they went back up to 10 and that made it a four-possession game instead of a three-possession game. We felt that if we could stay close, we had a chance."

-- Irv Solomon

North Chicago 72, Grant 47: The host Warhawks blew open a tight game in the third quarter en route to the North Suburban Prairie win that kept them perfect in the division.

"The wheels really came off and that was it," said Grant coach Phil Ralston, whose team was outscored 24-17 in the third quarter and 18-6 in the fourth.

Marc Grischeau led Grant (13-8, 4-6) with 14 points and Gilbert Sheehan added 11.

"I thought they played great," Ralston said. "They battled like warriors."

North Chicago (17-2, 9-0) held Mike Shields to a season-low 3 points. He fouled out.

The Warhawks were led by Kentrall Wilson with 16 points. Keith Ford and Steven Conner each had 11, and DeShawn Chambliss added 10.