Knights aim to keep pace against Bison

Can Prospect avenge its biggest loss with its biggest victory of the boys basketball season tonight?

That's what the Knights (12-9, 5-2) are hoping for as they have a shot at moving into a first-place tie in the Mid-Suburban East with their visit to defending champion Buffalo Grove (16-4, 6-1).

The Knights have had a knack for getting down but not out of games all year.

Last Friday they completed the comeback from a 12-point deficit in the final six minutes of regulation to knock Hersey (13-8, 5-2) out of the East lead with a 62-60 victory on Pat Ziegenfuss' game-winning 14-footer at the overtime buzzer.

It's not a situation they want to get into against a team they lost to 57-34 on Dec. 14.

"Obviously we're used to being down a lot coming into the fourth quarter," Ziegenfuss said. "But it shouldn't be like that. We should be up the whole game."

Prospect was only down by 4 points midway through the third quarter the first time. But its trio of school 3-point record-breaker Jeff Heiden, 6-foot-6 Alex Toth and 6-7 Kevin Reed scored only 19 of their combined 39-point average.

The key will be Ziegenfuss and crew keeping BG senior Brian DeSimone from getting close to the career-high 39 points and six 3-pointers he dropped on Thornwood on Saturday.

DeSimone had only 8 points the first time against the Knights but senior big man Mike Ricciardi had a season-high 19 points and Paul Timko added 11 points.

DeSimone is averaging 24.3 points in a 4-game winning streak since a 53-44 loss to Hersey.

"We got back to basics," DeSimone said. "We put a press in and we're running more and getting more easy looks."

And to maximize those changes the Bison have been tapping deeper into their reserves.

"Fresh legs off the bench has helped a lot lately," Ricciardi said. "Now we're playing 10 and a guy like Mike (sophomore Cornely) is doing really well for us."

Grinder rules of the West: The White Sox may have cornered the market on the term "grinder" en route to their 2005 World Series title.

It's a motto that would serve Conant well as it's 15-4 with a 1-game lead in the MSL West going into tonight's visit by Fremd. Junior Tony Rizzo even alluded to it after Saturday's 48-32 win over Lake Park.

"Coach (Tom McCormack) gets on us hard if we don't dive on loose balls at practice," Rizzo said. "He keeps grinding it into us. Play defense hard all the time or we won't be playing."

While everyone usually hears about defense leading to good offense, McCormack also sees the flip side playing into the Cougars allowing an MSL-best 41.4 points a game.

"One thing these guys have figured out is really good defensive teams let their offense help them out," said McCormack, who can hit 400 career victories if the Cougars win tonight and Saturday at Niles North. "They're willing to make the other team play defense for awhile.

"That's tough for young people to understand because it isn't always a fun thing to do."

But McCormack said a group where senior Tommy Sotos is the only double-figure scorer at 12.5 a game has done "a very good job of keeping their egos in check."

Seniors such as Sotos, Tom Mahr, Chris Hoffman, Jeff Keegan and Bill Charvat are playing their roles after primarily watching last year's team roll to a 27-3 record and Class AA supersectional appearance.

"I enjoy my role a lot and take pride in it," said Mahr of his willingness to crash the boards to get his 4-point average. "It's pretty much get rebounds, set screens."

And play defense, of course, for a team that has allowed 34 points or less four times in its 5-game winning streak since a 55-36 loss to St. Ignatius for the York tournament title.

"All of us are pretty intelligent kids and understand what they had going last year -- they had something special," Sotos said. "Watching them do their thing really helped us for this year.

"We see ourselves as a team no one really knew who we were. We've established an identity as a defensive-stopping team that people wouldn't want to play."

Because it's usually a real grind.

Deceptive change: Losing 5 of 6 games would seem to indicate a team careening off the track rather than getting back on it.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom for Hersey after the disappointment of a 62-60 overtime loss at Prospect.

"Everything is coming together," said senior guard Griffin Dwyer after scoring a career-high 29 points and hitting five 3s. "We have a couple of things we need to work on -- turnovers and cutting down mistakes.

"Once we do that and get people to step up -- we need more people to step up."

Dwyer did despite a nagging foot problem the last three weeks that kept him out of Saturday's 51-48 win at Deerfield.

"Coach (Steve Messer) looks to me to be a leader out there and a leader on the court," Dwyer said.

Prospect and Hersey grad John Camardella called Dwyer's night "one of the most impressive performances I've seen in the East in years."

But the Huskies need more from other sources to get back to where they were in an 11-3 start. Luke Fabrizius scored 20 against Deerfield to snap out of a 2-game funk with 5 total points.

Senior Ryan Moran also had a solid weekend with 7 points and 9 rebounds before fouling out against Prospect and a career-high 11 points against Deerfield.

"It won't take away the sting of (Prospect), but we showed signs of getting better as a full team," Messer said. "When we get our full eight, nine, 10 people playing the best they can and playing together I think we can be pretty tough."

A good sign for BG: The appearances were brief, but BG senior Chris Timberg got back on the floor for the first time last weekend against Wheeling and Thornwood. The all-conference guard who averaged 11 points a game and hit more than 60 3-pointers was out with a fractured bone in his foot.

"You can see him getting back into it," said senior teammate Mike Ricciardi. "He's going to be a big part of our state tournament."

Prospect senior defensive stopper Eric Vandivier also played Sunday and Tuesday after missing six weeks because of knee trouble.

A great thing ending? One of the state's storied programs is in danger of a state-record run coming to an end.

Proviso East, which has won four state titles and produced Jim Brewer, Doc Rivers, Michael Finley and Dee Brown, is on the verge of its first losing season since 1956-57 when it was 10-12.

The 8-13 Pirates would have to run the regular-season table and win 2 regional games to continue their streak of 50 straight winning seasons. Collinsville is next best with 30 in a row from 1921-50.

The other longest active runs of team success are Simeon (27 years), Rockford Boylan (25) and Lincoln (18).

Tip-ins: The ceremony honoring retiring Palatine coach Ed Molitor is next Friday at approximately 7 p.m. before its home game with Barrington … Schaumburg doubles up in the MSL West this weekend as it hosts Palatine tonight and travels to Barrington at 7 p.m. Saturday in a rescheduled game … Rolling Meadows hosts teams coached by alums of the Class of 1994 with Fritz Wulfram and Niles West on Saturday and Glenn Olson and Maine East on Tuesday. Meadows also hosts Lake Zurich next Saturday in a meeting of schools that played in a Class 7A football second-round game … St. Viator hosts Notre Dame at 7:30 p.m. Thursday … Class 4A sectional seeding meetings are Wednesday night.