BG, Hersey, Prospect keep East hopes alive

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First-year Prospect boys basketball coach John Camardella smiled Tuesday night and hoped his alma mater could deliver when Hersey hosted Buffalo Grove as the Mid-Suburban East race comes to a conclusion.

First-year Hersey coach Steve Messer would love for his team to come through for his fellow alumnus. And have Rolling Meadows come through with an upset win at Prospect.

And a Meadows win could help alum and BG coach Ryan O'Connor win a second straight outright East title.

But in the often wacky package that is the MSL East race, BG doesn't need any assistance to get a rematch of last year's title game Wednesday at West champion Conant.

A win by BG (17-6, 7-2) knocks out Hersey (14-10, 6-3). The Bison also have the head-to-head point differential tiebreaker in a split with Prospect (15-9, 7-2).

For Hersey to reach the title game it needs to duplicate its 53-44 win over BG on Jan. 12. The season sweep would knock out the Bison and the Huskies also hold the head-to-head point differential over Prospect in their split.

So the cell phone minutes figure to be piling up between gyms just a few miles away tonight. And in December it didn't appear as if Prospect would have a chance at the outright East title it needs to play for the MSL championship.

"After going 1-3 at Wheeling (holiday tournament) we were kind of down," said Prospect senior guard Jeff Heiden, whose team also started 1-2 in the East. "We knew we had a lot of season ahead of us and there were a lot of improvements we could make.

"We knew we were the type of team that could make a good run and put a few wins together."

A happy streak: The last two seasons have been filled with a lot of streaks for Maine West. Most of them were negative.

But modest runs of 3 wins overall and two in the Central Suburban North is a big positive since the Warriors lost 12 in a row twice last year and snapped a 19-game division skid two weeks ago.

Beating Maine East 61-54 last Friday was about more than just bragging rights. The Warriors beat a talented 15-win team seeded sixth in the Evanston Class 4A sectional.

"I think we were frustrated, but we also knew we were capable of getting a win like this," said Maine West coach Erik McNeill. "We had good halves and quarters here and there and Highland Park (43-37 loss) we played tough to the end.

"We just kept working. (Beating Maine East) definitely makes it even nicer and they're a very good team."

Adis Kadiric had his best varsity game with 24 points, 9 rebounds and three 3-pointers. Long-range counterpart Jimmy Orlowski had 10 points and two 3s.

And 6-foot-7 junior Tommy Solis, who is averaging 14.5 points his last 4 games, had 17 points and battled Avery and Plez Roche inside.

"Solis has played really well and is contributing," McNeill said. "You add that presence down low … and it's starting to look like the puzzle is being put together now."

Continuing its streaks will be a tall order with perennial power and North co-leader Glenbrook North visiting tonight. The Warriors may also face New Trier in a Tuesday crossover before opening against Taft in the Maine South regional.

"Obviously you want to be playing your best now," McNeill said. "I told the guys last week, I don't know anybody who has a tougher schedule (to finish). They're all top-six teams in our sectional.

"But we're definitely playing well and I'm thankful."

MSL's 13th team?: Glenbrook South could apply for auxiliary membership in the MSL after improving to 4-3 against the league with Saturday's 55-54 win over Schaumburg.

The Titans also beat Elk Grove, Palatine and Prospect and lost to Meadows, Fremd and Wheeling.

"It's great to play MSL teams because they're very physical and well-coached," said Glenbrook South coach Scott Nemecek. "They're style is all man-to-man and great motion offenses and that really helps us. In the CSL, every school is different and there is no pattern."

And wins over Prospect and the Saxons bookended a 4-game winning streak that has the Titans (11-13), who start only one senior, a team to watch in the postseason and next season. Especially with 6-9 junior Jack Cooley, who verbally committed to Notre Dame last week.

But the battle of highly touted juniors didn't materialize last Saturday as Schaumburg's Cully Payne rested a sprained left thumb for the second straight game.

"We're kind of friends a little bit," Cooley said of mixed emotions about Payne not playing. "We were talking afterward and it was a little disappointing because I wanted to play against him."

Blossoming future: Prospect coach John Camardella had a simple message for sophomore guard Joe LaTulip in Tuesday's 68-62 overtime win at St. Viator.

"I told him, 'Until you tell me you're tired you're not coming out of this game," Camardella said.

If LaTulip did get tired he never mentioned it since he didn't come off the floor after halftime. The results were 13 points, 6 assists and 6 rebounds in his most significant playing time.

"We hadn't scored in the first five minutes and I thought when I come in, I'll try to work the ball and hit guys open," LaTulip said. "Every time someone was open I got to them and they hit the shot."

And Camardella was glad to get seniors Peter McBride, Nick Carlson and Griffin Rebecca on the court for starts Tuesday because of the significance of today's final home game.

"I can't compliment them enough to the roles they've played this season," Camardella said.

Grand entrances: Brian DeSimone (1,011 points) became the seventh player in Buffalo Grove history to score 1,000 career points. He joined Brian Allsmiller (2,073), Jason Strojinc (1,234), Paul Petersen (1,138), Paul Heesch (1,092), Jason Wiertel (1,057) and Brian Coderre (1,041).

Kyle Gaedele (1,038) became the fourth player in Rolling Meadows history to score 1,000 points. He joined Rob Garnes (1,858), Mike Lipnisky (1,453) and Bryan Porter (1,224).

Triple plays: Billy Hubly's 7 3-pointers last week gave him 68 to break his own single-season Elk Grove record of 62 last year. Hubly also has the school's career record for most 3s (167) and currently has the best career 3-point percentage (38.7) ahead of Scott Scholten (34.1).

Chris Timberg's seven 3s Sunday at Loyola tied the BG single-game record by Pat Reynolds in 2005 and Jason Strojinc in 1995 and 1994.

Matter of overtime: After finishing its first 20 games in the regulation 32 minutes, Palatine's last three games have required an extra four minutes with wins over Stevenson and Barrington and a loss to Vernon Hills.

The Pirates were probably due for some extra time after two last year, four in 2005-06 that included wins in quadruple overtime over Conant and double overtime over Hoffman and another three in a row in 2004-05.

But Palatine did go three seasons without an overtime game from 1999-2000 to 2001-02.

Hoffman Estates in 2005-06 and Prospect in 1992-93 played 5 overtime games.

Tip-ins: Any Hoffman Estates fans watching Shaun Pruitt's free-throw follies for Illinois in its double-overtime loss to Indiana last week must have wondered what happened in four years. Pruitt was 7-for-8 for West Aurora in its 47-42 Class AA state quarterfinal win over the Hawks in 2004 and 13-for-15 in the tourney … St. Viator's East Suburban Catholic Conference makeup home game with rival Notre Dame is at 7:30 p.m. Monday. The Lions finish their regular season Wednesday at Joliet Catholic.

Go-to guy:ŒLast year, with none of his players averaging more than 12 points per game, Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose wondered how well his team would be able to do down the stretch without a true "go-to" player.

All the Patriots did was advance all the way downstate.

Now, Stevenson has that "go-to" player and Ambrose is wondering if he's got enough balance around forward Dylan Richter to make a return trip to Peoria.

Richter is coming off an amazing game against Mundelein in which he scored a career-high 34 points. On a normal night, he's good for close to a double-double.

"Dylan is one of the best players in Lake County and he's having a great year," Ambrose said. "It's nice to have that go-to player, especially when the kid is willing to take on that responsibility.

"But I still think we need to make sure other guys are stepping up. We have other guys who can do that. We're going to need that in the tournament."

Just shoot it: Normally, a coach gets on a player for shooting too much, not the other way around.

But Lake Zurich coach John Zarr found himself doing just that last month when he had a little one-one-one with junior guard Connor Mooney, who was in a bit of a scoring slump.

"It wasn't that Connor was off, he just wasn't shooting the ball," Zarr said. "It was like he slipped into this mentality of 'Let's see how many assists I can get.' And that's fine to find open teammates, but with Connor, we really need him shooting the ball for us to win games.

"I had to pull Connor aside and ask him what was going on. I told him to just shoot the ball."

Mooney apparently is a good listener. Since that chat, he's put up some nice numbers for the Bears. In fact, last week against Rolling Meadows, he pumped in a season-high 33 points.

"He's starting to put up the points again," Zarr said of Mooney, who is averaging about 16 points per game. "That's what we need him to do."