Huntley slips past Grayslake N.
Twice in the last 11/2 minutes it was anybody's ball and Huntley or Grayslake North's boys basketball game in Wednesday night's Fox Valley Fox Division opener.
Sophomore Tyler Brunschon showed no hesitation or trepidation either time to help visiting Huntley (11-6, 1-0) hold on for a 60-59 victory.
Brunschon's three-quarter court drive after a Grayslake North player slipped and lost the ball put Huntley up 60-56 with 1:22 to play.
He also corralled a rebound off the floor in the final seconds to preserve the Red Raiders fourth straight victory.
"He's only a sophomore but one of the things that's really good about him is he does have a high basketball IQ," Huntley coach Marty Manning said after Brunschon hit a pair of 3-pointers en route to 8 second-half points.
But Brunschon wasn't thinking about eating up some time when Grayslake North (6-9, 0-1) had and lost the ball with a chance to tie or go ahead.
"I was thinking about scoring all the way," Brunschon said. "Even with a kid right there, I was going to go up and draw the foul and try to make the free throws."
He did miss a chance for a 3-point play and after a turnover, a 3-point play off a miss by Brandon Schroth (16 points) with 42.7 seconds left got the Knights within 60-59.
After Huntley missed a 1-and-1, the Knights called time with 25.2 seconds left. Matt Pucher (game-high 18 points) missed a heavily contested shot in the lane and Brunschon eventually got the rebound.
"We ran that several times (with Pucher) and got easy baskets out of it in the first half," said Knights coach Todd Grunloh. "We wanted to put it in his hands but a couple of big guys closed out and it just didn't drop."
Brunschon missed a 1-and-1 at 0:03 but Grunloh didn't want to let Huntley's defense get set up and didn't use one of his 2 timeouts. A three-quarter court shot by Grant Henricksen (16 points) was on line but short as the Knights lost their fourth in a row.
"After a month of pretty poor basketball that's a step in the right direction," said Grunloh, whose team was missing two of its top six with Patrick Grim at President Obama's inauguration and Rollin Idlas out for violation of team rules "The big reason (for Wednesday's loss) was our free throws (10-for-18) and they knocked down big shots."
Zac Boster scored all 13 of his points in the first 12:08, Mike Gonzaga had 9 of his 11 in the second half and Jordan Neukirch added 10 points and 4 assists as Huntley shot 64 percent (25-for-39) from the field and 8-for-14 on 3s.
"We feel more comfortable and everyone was clicking tonight," Brunschon said.
"Our M.O. all year is our defense has been really good and our offense has struggled," Manning said. "Tonight was the exact opposite - we just couldn't get stops."