Reserves give Schaumburg a spark

It's nice to have a bench with fairly anonymous players who come into a game, play their hearts out and inspire the starters to come back in and play at maximum efficiency.

Schaumburg's bench did that Friday night at home against Barrington. Chris Kelly, Joe Infusino, Richard Barnes and Grant Grossman came in and helped turn a 14-8 first-quarter deficit into a 33-19 lead by halftime. Along with starters Cully Payne (game-high 19 points) and Justin Swiercz (13), a height-challenged Saxon team (5-0) remained unbeaten and got its Mid-Suburban West boys basketball season off to a good start.

"The second quarter, we came out focused," said Saxon coach Bob Williams, heaping praise on his reserves, who combined for 24 points. By the time some of the better-known and more-celebrated starters got back into the game, everyone was focused.

Schaumburg held Barrington (0-5) without a field goal in 25-5 second quarter. Payne was responsible for much of it, hitting 4 straight field goals, including a pair of treys, and contributing to a defensive effort that forced 10 first-half turnovers.

Payne dished out 6 assists in the game, several key ones coming in period two, with Swiercz the beneficiary much of the time.

"Oh yeah," Swiercz said through a smile when asked how nice it was to have someone with Payne's court awareness find him and anyone else who was open. Schaumburg used its speed and quickness advantages to offset Barrington's edge in height after 6-foot-8 Mack Darrow (15 points) and 6-4 Bryant Sullivan sparked a quick start.

But Schaumburg made the necessary adjustments.

"We were fronting the post," on defense, Swiercz noted, and, with the shorter, quicker lineup, "We wanted to run," on offense, he added.

"We work on rebounding," especially with the shorter lineup in there, said Swiercz.

"They turned up their defensive pressure," said Barrington head coach Marty Dello.

"Those kids (off the bench) turned the whole style of the game," said Williams after his team won the battle of the boards.

"In the second quarter, we kind of fell off a little bit," execution-wise, said Dello. "In our league, you cannot afford to lose a quarter like that.

"We had some shots that just didn't drop. I was happy with the effort."

For Schaumburg, with 6-5 Blake Mueller still out injured and 6-5 Anthony Iannotti on a football recruiting trip to Penn, the results continue to be encouraging.