Sotos, Conant pass up Highland Park

A big individual performance in the second half can really help propel a basketball team to a victory.

On Friday afternoon at the St. Viator Thanksgiving basketball tournament, Conant (3-0) received such an effort from senior guard Christian Sotos against Highland Park.

Sotos scored 21 of his game-high 23 points after intermission to help lead the Cougars to a 49-46 win.

"Nothing really changed," Sotos said of the second half. "We had good spacing, my teammates found me, and I hit the shots. It wasn't like I was creating anything myself. I was spotting up and my guys got me the ball."

Conant entered the fourth quarter trailing 33-27, and it was in that frame that Sotos did most of his damage by scoring 14 points, including three 3-pointers.

"We were dead in the water there for a while," Conant coach Tom McCormack said. "He (Sotos) is a confident kid and he made some plays. We're expecting to see that all year long."

Highland Park coach Paul Harris said all you can do is tip your hat to Sotos.

"He hit some deep ones (3-pointers)," Harris said. "A lot of times we had a hand in his face, but he still hit some big shots."

Rivaling Sotos second half scoring was the Giants' Marin Kukoc, who also only had 2 points at the break but finished the game with 17.

Sotos said the Cougars were just playing smarter basketball in the fourth quarter.

"We didn't turn the ball over," Sotos said. "We hit some shots, but I feel like turnovers were the big key in the second half."

In the first half Highland Park (2-2) was able to force 9 Conant turnovers, compared to just 5 in the second.

"We felt like we were making a few too many mental mistakes, early-in-the-season type of mistakes that we'll work on and try to correct," McCormack said. "I give our guys a lot of credit for hanging in there on a night when a lot of things weren't going right."

Garret Gatz and Taylor Peterson both had 9 points for Conant.

The Cougars face the tournament host Lions in their tournament finales at 5 p.m. today; both teams are 3-0 in the tournament.