Strong defensive effort carries D-C past CLS

Dundee-Crown boys basketball coach Lance Huber was quick to point out two players Saturday night after a 61-41 Fox Valley Conference Valley Division victory over Crystal Lake South.

Huber didn't mention senior guard Jeff Beck, who scored a game-high 20 points. Nor was it senior center Charles Kimbrough, who had 16 points and 12 rebounds.

Instead Huber talked about Aaron Reams and Jeff Strzelczyk, who combined for 8 points. But it was the job they did defensively on the Gators' Eric Wilde and Adam Olszewski.

"Those guys were tremendous," Huber said of Reams and Strzelczyk. "I thought that big part of the ballgame."

Wilde and Olszewski were held to 7 points each and each only hit 1 field goal. All of Olszewski's points came in the final 2 minutes of the fourth quarter when the game was out of reach.

"Coach told me to take away (Wilde's) threes," said Reams, who is 6-foot-4 with long arms. "I played him tight. I didn't really help out (against others) on defense because he's a 3-point shooter."

The Chargers (11-4, 2-0) never trailed, opening with a 6-0 run behind a basket from Reams and two from Beck. CL South (10-8, 0-2) took 5 1/2minutes to score its first points, a Michael Frericks jumper in the paint, and scored only 4 points in the opening quarter. The Gators went 2 of 8 from the field in the quarter.

South hit its first four shots of the second to get within 4, 17-13. After the Gators' first missed shot of the quarter, Kimbrough took an outlet pass and had a breakaway dunk that sparked a game-changing 11-2 run that gave the Chargers a 28-15 halftime lead.

"The most disappointing thing I had was that we were down six with the ball in the second quarter and it looked like in our guys' eyes that they didn't believe they could win," South coach Dan DeBruycker said. "That's disappointing"

The Gators, what shot just 31 percent (13 of 42), never got closer than 11 points in the second half. Frericks led South with 11 points. Steven Rogers added 9 points.