Carmel bows out; Lake Zurich rolls

In a close game, it's the little things that can make a big difference.

On Tuesday at Lake Zurich, it was Dan Wenzel, ironically one of the smallest players on the floor, who made a big difference by doing little things like rebounding and hitting free throws.

The 5-foot-9 Wenzel grabbed 4 critical rebounds and sank 6 straight free throws in the final two minutes to break up a tie game and help No. 13 Rolling Meadows get a 67-58 victory over No. 20 Carmel in first round Class 4A regional action.

Rolling Meadows improves to 13-14 and advances into today's regional semifinal game against fourth-seeded Warren. Carmel closes out its season at 6-22.

"Dan Wenzel has so much heart," Rolling Meadows coach Kevin Katovich said. "He made some big plays for us."

So did junior guard Richie Kemph, who was the Mustangs' other clutch playmaker down the stretch. With the score tied at 56, he scored 5 points as Rolling Meadows closed out the game on an 11-2 run that included some nice energy on the defensive end.

And that led to some costly Carmel turnovers.

"It was an all-around team effort," Kemph said. "We stepped it up inside and on defense and got some good leadership from our seniors."

Kemph finished with a game-high 28 points. His steal and layup that started the decisive run gave Rolling Meadows its first lead of the quarter...and nearly of the entire second half.

Carmel had put together a huge third quarter, thanks in large part to the hot shooting of junior guard Patrick Cox, who was challenged at halftime to contribute much more than he did in the first half.

Cox scored just one basket before the break but wound up with a team-high 20 points. He connected on 5-of-8 third quarter field goals to help Carmel, down 27-25 at halftime, build a relatively big lead.

The Corsairs went up by as many as 9 points in the third quarter and took a 46-39 advantage into the fourth quarter.

"Coach (John Ryan) told me I needed to be more aggressive because I had only two (first-half) points," Cox said. "He told me I could be doing more that I did and that I needed to just take 'em to the basket and then everyone just followed."

The Corsairs got 16 points from Jon Huisel and 11 points a piece out of Ryan Kloss and Connor Sexon. But turnovers and defensive lapses late in the game negated some of those gains.

"We had control of the game," Ryan said. "We just didn't get the stops we needed and we made mistakes. But this is actually the best we've played all year. We just need to learn how to close out games."

Besides Kemph, Rolling Meadows got double-figures out of Wenzel and Will Trunk. They each scored 10 points.

Lake Zurich 52, Round Lake 32: With a possible matchup with fifth-seeded Schaumburg looming, host Lake Zurich was hoping to cruise to victory in its first-round regional game on Tuesday so that key players could rest.

But Round Lake was having none of that.

Sure, the Panthers lost by 20 points, but the margin really is deceiving because they pushed Lake Zurich harder and longer than probably anyone in the gym could have anticipated.

No. 21 Round Lake hung around for much of the second half and it wasn't until the waning minutes that tenth-seeded Lake Zurich had extended the margin to 20.

"If we were going to get to come back in a 24-hour period and play (Schaumburg) we definitely wanted to rest guys more than we did," said Lake Zurich coach John Zarr, whose team will take on the Saxons tonight at 8 p.m. "But give credit to Round Lake. They executed very well and played hard. They gave us everything that we could handle and we were fortunate to come out on top."

The Bears (15-12) got double figures out of their veteran big guys - a game-high 17 points for Danny Coleman and 14 points for Brandon Kunz. Teammate Chas Evans also gave an inspired effort. He tallied 10 points, making key plays late in the fourth quarter to slam the door on any hopes Round Lake had for a comeback.

Evans scored a traditional three-point play when he was fouled on a layup and he also turned a steal into a layup.

"We struggled with a lot of things, but Chas was definitely a bright spot for us," Zarr said.

A bright spot for Round Lake, which closes out the season with a 4-23 record, was the play of sophomore forward Jake Paulsen, who finished with a team-high 12 points and kept many possessions alive by being relentless on the offensive boards. He finished with 8 rebounds.

"Credit to Lake Zurich, they're one of the best teams in our area," Round Lake coach Howard Kravets. "But you know what, we played these guys a week ago, lost by 30 and just totally got blown out. It wasn't even close. And we were hanging around tonight for a lot of the game. I'm really proud of the effort we made. We did not give up. We really made them work, probably a lot harder than they wanted to, considering that they have to play (today)."