Big start propels Grens

Donny Duschinsky was in no hurry to start his best sport.

The Elk Grove junior also didn't want to see his senior teammates' basketball careers end Monday night.

Duschinsky scored a career-high 18 points and had 10 rebounds as the 17th-seeded Grenadiers (8-20) never trailed in a 64-50 win over No. 15 Mather (17-11) in the Class 4A Elk Grove regional quarterfinal.

"I always look forward to baseball but I wanted to keep going and prolong basketball as long as I could," said Duschinsky, a pitcher-shortstop for the Grens. "And I wanted to do it for the seniors because it's their last chance."

So the Grens, who broke a five-game losing streak, get a shot at No. 2 Maine East (18-8) at 7:30 p.m. today. They raced out to leads of 16-2, 24-4 and 30-8 as senior Robert Hult also had a career-high 14 points, senior Tim Furlong had 11 points and senior J.J. Lastovich had 8 points and 8 assists.

Lastovich had assists on 4 of the Grens' first 5 baskets as they forced Mather from its 2-3 zone to a man-to-man.

"We got a good jump on their zone," said Elk Grove coach Anthony Furman. "We worked a lot on it and executed it."

The Grens shot 52.2 percent from the field (24-for-46) to produce their second-highest point total of the season even though senior scoring leader Matt Martinski, who played briefly last Tuesday, is out the rest of the season after re-injuring his knee in practice.

"He's a big leader for us," Duschinsky said. "But since he went down (late January) other people have stepped up."

Six-foot-6 junior Scott Siwicki did after he had the ball stolen with Mather on a 14-2 tear and looking to get within 5 points. Siwcki blocked and rebounded Brandon Roby's layup attempt and that led to layups by Lastovich and Hult for a 56-45 lead with 2:21 left.

"We kept our composure," Duschinsky said. "We kept playing hard and got the job done."