Lake Zurich takes down Rolling Meadows 52-45

Rolling Meadows went outside to hit 10 3-pointers and stay in Saturday night's nonconference boys basketball game at Lake Zurich.

Lake Zurich stayed inside to score the bulk of its points and come away with a 52-45 victory.

"Our 3s last night (46-43 loss to Lake Forest) didn't go in so our focus was getting inside," said 6-foot-6 Lake Zurich senior Brandon Kunz. "Whether it was driving or getting it down low, we were trying to get some layups and get our confidence up."

Kunz's couldn't have been higher as he scored a game-high 20 points on 10-for-12 shooting.

The Bears (7-7) missed all 9 of their shots behind the 3-point arc but were 20-for-31 inside and 12-for-15 on free throws.

Kunz also had 13 rebounds to lead the Bears to a 32-16 advantage, blocked 4 shots and had 3 assists.

"They had a difficult matchup with Brandon," said Lake Zurich coach John Zarr of 6-3 Jimmy Garoppolo as Meadows' tallest player to battle Kunz and 6-6 Danny Coleman (8 points, 5 rebounds).

"They looked inside a little bit and Kunz just killed us," Meadows coach Kevin Katovich said after he hit his first 9 shots from the field. "I don't think we did a poor job on him - but he's a nice player."

Meadows (6-9) was 10-for-25 on 3s with junior Richie Kemph going 5-for-9 for a team-high 19 points.

But inside the arc the Mustangs shot just 6-for-21 in their seventh loss in eight games.

"I thought this was a real key victory for us against a good team," Zarr said. "Any time you can shoot the basketball like they do you're going to be in the game."

Jumping to a 13-3 lead forced Meadows to play catchup the rest of the night. Consecutive 3s by Kemph cut the deficit to 39-33 with 6:23 left, but Lake Zurich never let it get closer as Connor Mooney scored 8 of his 13 points in the final 5:51.

"We felt like we finished (Friday) night's game pretty strong," Kunz said. "We wanted to try and carry it over and not have a slow start like we have in the past."

Will Trunk had 8 points and a pair of 3s as Meadows battled a night after leading nearly the whole way before losing 52-48 to Buffalo Grove.

"Today was nice test after a crushing loss," Katovich said. "Our guys came ready to play and responded well."