Cougars sink Bulldogs

Vernon Hills' boys basketball team pulled out one of its trusty drills at practice Thursday.

For about a half-hour, coach Matt McCarty said, five Cougars practiced running the offense against six teammates.

"I think that was a good lead-in (to Friday night's game)," McCarty said of the 5-vs.-6 drill. "We had a great practice."

Vernon Hills had a better game.

Facing defensive pressure that wasn't quite as intense, the Cougars executed their motion offense to near-perfection and cruised to a 62-41 win over host Wauconda in the two teams' North Suburban Prairie Division opener.

Chris Morgan drained a pair of right-corner 3-pointers early to spark Vernon Hills, and the visitors were in control the rest of the way.

"The offense worked really well tonight," said Morgan, who scored 12 points. "They just weren't catching on to what we were doing."

Morgan's right-wing 3 against Wauconda's matchup zone gave Vernon Hills (4-2) a 20-5 lead after one quarter.

The Cougars hit 7 of their 10 shots in the opening eight minutes.

"I've done it before," Morgan said of hitting three 3s in a quarter. "I'm just trying to be more consistent."

Morgan made his 3s on as many shots, while Jonny Rathod came off the bench to bury his lone 3-point attempt in the opening quarter.

"I was a little disappointed with our lack of effort in the first 2-3 minutes of the game," said Wauconda coach Rich Wolf, whose team fell to 2-3. "I thought we game-planned quite well for them in terms of what they were going to do offensively and how they were going to play defensively."

Vernon Hills cooled off only slightly in the second quarter in extending its lead to 36-15 by halftime. DaVaris Daniels (game-high 14 points) swished a pair of 3s, and Brian Smith and Riaz Hoveydai also canned shots from behind the arc.

Vernon Hills went to the locker room having made 8 of 10 three-point attempts.

"We had a lot of touches on the inside, kicking it outside to some guys that were making shots," McCarty said. "I thought we had very unselfish basketball in that first quarter."

"We were just one or two steps slow," Wolf said. "We talked about their shooters and about the fact that if you allow them to get clean looks, they're going to knock (shots) down, and obviously they knocked them down."

Rathod added 9 points (4-of-4 shooting) for Vernon Hills, which finished 22-of-43 (51 percent) from the floor. The Cougars were 9 of 13 from behind the arc.

Wauconda got 9 points from Bradon Prate and 8 from Eric Hartnett.

Vernon Hills visits defending NSC Prairie champ North Chicago next Saturday night.

Quipped McCarty: "Maybe we could use six guys against those guys."