Low-scoring affair goes Elgin's way
With a wry grin Elgin boys basketball coach Mike Sitter said his squad's 35-28 victory over visiting Lake Park on Tuesday "set offensive basketball back about 50 years."
Lake Park coach Cray Allen was kinder. He said the Upstate Eight Conference foes only set the game back 30 years.
No matter which decade of basketball history the two teams inadvertently were paying homage to, the Upstate Eight Conference game at Chesbrough Field House seemed frozen in time for the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, when neither was able to score in a 1-point game.
Elgin senior point guard Tom Roth, the team's leading scorer who had been held scoreless through the first three quarters, finally broke through at the 3:03 mark with a bucket on a drive through the lane after Lake Park switched out of zone defense and went man-to-man.
Roth's drive gave Elgin a 28-25 lead. He upped the advantage to 30-25 on a carbon copy drive with 2:01 to play, which put the Maroons ahead by 5 points.
"It was a really weird game," Roth said. "We just let them hang in there. The first quarter we weren't playing really good defense, but in the fourth quarter when it counted we stepped up and got some stops.
"It was a defense-dominated game. Or lack of offense. One of those two. I don't know."
Elgin (6-8, 1-2) sank 5-of-7 free throws in the final 1:03 to hold off Lake Park (5-11, 0-3), which shot 1 of 6 in the fourth quarter and 10 of 37 for the game (27 percent).
"I just think we just weren't hitting shots, and we were getting open looks," said Lake Park senior Lucas Antioho. "We just weren't nailing open shots when we had them. That was our biggest problem." The Lancers shot 2 of 10 from 3-point range.
Antioho left the game twice with injuries - an ankle sprain in the second quarter and a hand injury in the fourth - but came back both times and finished with 7 points and 6 rebounds.
However, no Lancer cracked double-figure scoring. Junior guard Matt Drufke and senior guard Danny Baylis led Lake Park with 8 points apiece. The Lancers turned the ball over 16 times to Elgin's 13, but the Maroons finished with a 25-22 rebounding edge.
"Our kids have only been outrebounded twice this year, which is pretty impressive for a team with a losing record," Lake Park coach Cray Allen said. "Plus, we had 16 turnovers against no ball pressure, no full-court pressure. So, if you're going to shoot (27 percent) it's going to be tough. We have some kids struggling with their confidence offensively."
Lake Park held a 17-16 halftime lead, then the Maroons pounded the ball inside to 6-foot-5 senior forward Marcus Redburg, who scored 8 of his game-high 13 points in the third quarter.
"We tried to isolate Tom (Roth) when they went man, and when they went zone, we tried to get it down low to me," Redburg said. "It wasn't working much the whole game until we got to the end there. It was really great defensive intensity by both teams, really."