Schaumburg 58, Highland Park 48
Take away the first and second options?
No problem.
On a night when Highland Park's defensive scheme was designed to stop Schaumburg's leading scorers, Cully Payne and Brandon Bolger, along came Blake Mueller and Perrish Bell to save the day.
Mueller turned in a career-best effort by scoring 22 points and pulling down 12 rebounds, and Bell scored 9 points and played an important role defensively in Schaumburg's 58-48 semifinal win in the Barrington Class 4A sectional Wednesday.
The No. 7-seeded Saxons (19-9) take a 6-game winning streak into Friday's 7:30 p.m. championship game against No. 1 Zion-Benton (29-3), an 88-67 winner over Buffalo Grove on Tuesday night.
Mueller (9 points) and Bell (3) provided all of Schaumburg's offense on 3-point baskets in the first quarter as the Saxons were struggling to solve third-seeded Highland Park's triangle-and-two defense that was designed to keep the ball away from Payne and Bolger. It worked for the first half.
"That left me wide open, and I just started to shoot," said Mueller. "Coach (Bob Williams) said if I get open to shoot the ball.
"This was the biggest game of my career so far," Mueller said. "It was the most ready I've been for a game my whole life, and once I hit those shots, I kept going."
"I told him before the game that now is the time to have a breakout game," Williams said. "He had ACL surgery last summer."
In the third quarter, Schaumburg turned a 25-25 tie into a 41-29 lead heading into the fourth quarter, outscoring Highland Park 16-4 in a five-minute stretch. Mueller scored 9 of the Saxons' 18 points in the quarter, while Schaumburg held the Giants (22-6) to just 6 points.
The defensive job Bell did on HP guard Chris Wroblewski (15 points) kept the Giants from sustaining their offense. Through three quarters, Bell held Wroblewski to 6 points.
"I knew I had to stay with him," Bell said. "I was forcing him to go to the right, because he liked going to his left."
"That's his role," Williams said. "He's an effort guy, a role player who is extremely important to the team.
"We always hang our hat on defense," Williams said. "Defensively, we made people do things they don't want to do."
Bell also hit a couple of 3 pointers in the first half when the Giants were shadowing Payne and Bolger.
"(Highland Park) was trying to keep the ball out of their hands, and that left me open for a lot of shots," Bell said.
Once Schaumburg gained control, Payne found himself in the familiar position of taking over the game down the stretch. He scored 10 of his 14 points in the fourth quarter, driving to the basket and either scoring or drawing fouls.
Highland Park's Tellef Lundevall scored 20 points in a losing effort.
"Part of what we try to do is make role players beat us," Highland Park coach Paul Harris said. "We did a great job on Payne and Bolger."