Career-high 37 for Wheaton Academy's Rusthoven
Wheaton Academy 68, Streamwood 59
For many teams it is a tale of two halves in the season opener and there was no exception made for Wheaton Academy as the Warriors beat Streamwood 68-59 Monday at the Wheaton Academy Thansgiving Tournament.
The Warriors (1-0) started out extremely slow in the first half as they shot a cool 28 percent from the floor as they fell behind Streamwood 28-23 by halftime.
"We might have had a little bit of nerves," WA center Tim Rusthoven said. "It almost seemed like we played two different games tonight."
The reason for that was because the Warriors looked like a completely different team in the second half. Wheaton started the half on fire as they connected on 6 of its first 7 shots in the third quarter and outscored the Sabres 18-5 in that frame to open the game up.
For the second half, the Warriors shot a hot 76 percent (13 of 17) from the floor and converted 18-of-22 free throws.
"There were couple of keys in tonights game," WA coach Paul Ferguson said. "We converted a very high percentage of free throws tonight and we also worked the ball around and got ourselves open shots. In the first half, we got away from our gameplan and didn't do what we wanted. It was the first game but we came back from it."
Rusthoven, who had a scout from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at the game, did not disappoint as he scored a career-high 37 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked 8 shots, just missing a triple-double in the season opener. For the game he shot 12 of 16 from the field and 13 of 14 from the free throw line.
"If I were to say that I did not want to get to 40 points I would be lying," Rusthoven said. "Of course it was in the back of my mind, but I would rather get the win than score 40 points and lose. I just went out and worked and had a little fun tonight. It was definitely a nice way to start the season off."
Rusthoven was one of the major reasons the Warriors were in the game in the first half as he scored 20 of the 25 points and pulled down nine rebounds, but Ferguson knew they had to keep getting the ball to their big fellow.
"We knew we had to refocus and get the ball down low in the second half even more," Ferguson said of his 6-8 center. "After we were able to knock down a few shots we became more loose on the offensive end. They obviously had lots of trouble with our inside players tonight."
Marcus Lewis and Tem Eskiel scored 22 and 21 respectively for Streamwood, but many of those points came when the Sabres were down double-digits late in the second half. Streamwood coach Tim Jones said he was disappointed how his seniors played and thought that they folded under pressure. It was also tough for Streamwood (0-1) as its only big man, 6-foot-6 Brian Domokos, was in foul trouble and played sparringly.
"Rusthoven is definitely very tough," Jones said. "He was very highly touted and lived up to it. He is very tough to defend and he can knock down jumpers too so he isn't one-dimensional."
Anthony Ritchie chipped in with 13 points in the win, all in the second half.