Streamwood stuns St. Charles East in overtime

With his team trailing St. Charles East 30-23 at halftime, Streamwood boys basketball coach Tim Jones had a simple message for his players.

"He told us that we weren't playing hard and that we weren't getting back on defense," said junior point guard Jerrold Ofiana.

With the Sabres trailing 48-45 in the final seconds of regulation, Ofiana sent a message to the Saints when his coldblooded 3-pointer helped force overtime.

"It was just whoever was open, shoot it and I thought I was open," said Ofiana, who finished with 12 points and 4 steals.

Streamwood (2-4, 1-1) continued its momentum by scoring the first 5 points during the 4-minute extra session on its way to a 57-54 Upstate Eight Conference road victory over St. Charles East (2-5, 0-2) Friday night.

"You could see the difference in practice this week," said Jones. "We finally got our act together and we finally came and worked together. The guys worked hard tonight."

Both teams wasted opportunities to put the game away in regulation, as the Sabres built a 40-35 lead early in the fourth quarter on a nifty inside move by Derrick King (9 points, 6 rebounds, 4 steals).

However, the Saints grabbed a 48-45 advantage in the final minute on a 3-point play from Jess Striedl (12 points, 7 rebounds) and pair of free throws by Drew Vazquez (15 points), setting the stage for Ofiana's game-tying 27-foot jumper with 6 seconds left.

"We hit some big shots when we had to," said Jones. "What I was more proud about these guys than anything was that they kept fighting back. At least that's a step in the right direction.

"We didn't bag it in, we didn't feel sorry for ourselves and we weren't yelling at the officials. That was a big difference in the ballgame - we kept fighting."

The first half belonged to the Saints, who shot better than 50 percent from the field (12-for-22) while building a 7-point halftime lead. Many of those baskets came off transition layups.

"We gave up way too many layups at the beginning," said Jones. "We weren't getting back on defense."

Jones credited senior forward Marcus Lewis (15 points) for the Sabres' second-half defensive turnaround.

"Lewis talked at halftime about playing a 3-2 zone," said Jones. "He made a great call on that. We started out in that 3-2 and really kind of stymied them a little bit."

After taking decent care of the basketball in the first half with 6 turnovers, St. Charles East committed 7 third-quarter turnovers while being outscored 15-5.

The Saints also hurt their own cause at the free-throw line where they finished 8-of-19, including a 1-for-7 stretch in overtime.

"They made theirs down the stretch and we didn't," said Saints coach Brian Clodi, who was denied in his first attempt at his 100th career victory. "Coming into this game, we were shooting 70 percent for the year (from the line).

"It's our home floor - we've got to shoot better."

Streamwood, meanwhile, made 7 of its 10 free-throw attempts in overtime.

"This win should give us some confidence," said Jones. "We've got a game (today) against McHenry and if we can get another win, we'd be on a little bit of a roll."