Neuqua Valley stymies Geneva for 16th straight
Geneva has played its share of tough teams this year, from St. Charles North to Glenbard South to Batavia.
They hadn't seen anything like Neuqua Valley.
The Wildcats (24-1), the top-ranked team in the Daily Herald's Top 20, blitzed the Vikings, No. 15 in the same poll, with a 15-0 flurry in the first half and never looked back Tuesday, winning 64-45 in Geneva.
Neuqua Valley ran its win streak to 16th straight.
"They are solid at every position, they are deep, the guys they bring off the bench are not far from the guys in the starting lineup," Geneva coach Phil Ralston said. "Without a doubt (they are the best team we've seen). I'd like to believe we are a little better of a defensive team than we were tonight. We were in position on a lot of their shots and they just hit them. That's talent right there."
Geneva (17-6) succeeded in slowing the pace early, taking its only lead of the game at 6-4 on Jeremy D'Amico's drive with 2:09 remaining in the first quarter.
That would be Geneva's last points for the next 5:25. During that span the Wildcats put 15 points on the board, and true to their balanced style, those points came from six different players: Nolan Brown, Derek Raridon, Drew Sutton, Dwayne Evans, Kareem Amedu and Steve Waeghe. By the time the Wildcats were finished, they led 19-6. They pushed the spread to 27-11 at halftime, 48-25 after three quarters and as many as 29 points in the fourth before Geneva closed the final margin to 19.
"We started out a little slow because they were stalling but after that I think we got on them, forced some turnovers and ended up doing well," said Evans, a 6-foot-5 junior who said he's been talking to Northwestern, Miami (Florida), SIU, NIU, Loyola and Kent State, among others.
Neuqua Valley head coach Todd Sutton, as he does once a year, turned the coaching duties over to assistant Bob Vozza.
Vozza, the future Metea Valley's coach, played for former Geneva coach Tim Pease at Waubonsie Valley from 1987-1990, and their friendship is the reason Neuqua Valley and Geneva have played the past two years.
"Todd is gracious enough to let me do that for a game," Vozza said. "I enjoy it. The guys respond to both of us so it doesn't matter who is standing out there."
D'Amico led all scorers with 21 points, 16 in the second half. Raridon (13), Evans (12) and Amedu (10) all reached double figures for Neuqua Valley, while Raridon also helped shut down D'Amico early.
"He's (D'Amico) kind of a matchup nightmare because he's in-between a post and a guard and I was going back and forth between Derek and Dwayne but I think Derek did a phenomenal job," Vozza said. "Whenever we've asked him to step up defensively he has."
Nobody besides D'Amico scored more than 6 points for Geneva. Christian Frederking hit a 3-pointer just inside half court at the final buzzer, giving him 5. Rob Tauscher scored 6, and Tyler Scofield grabbed 5 rebounds.
"Our goal was to control the game and I'd say outside of the first four minutes we failed miserably at that," Ralston said. "There's a reason they are 24-1. They are good."
Geneva will try to bounce back Friday when they go for the season sweep against rival Batavia. Before that, the Vikings and the rest of the area teams will learn their sectional seed Thursday after online voting by coaches today.
After Neuqua Valley and Naperville Central, the Vikings are in a group of several teams with pretty similar records - not that Ralston is that concerned where they end up. "Outside Neuqua Valley, we've beaten every team in our sectional (that we've played)," Ralston said. "You play where they place you and you just have to go out and play your next game. It's not something I'll lose sleep over. Anyone who has seen us play knows we have a solid team and can play tough defense and have some good complementary players."