Batavia bounces back with win over Dundee-Crown
There's no arguing that things haven't gone Batavia's way lately.
The Bulldogs lost a couple of close games and dropped 4 of 5 overall heading into Tuesday morning's consolation game against Dundee Crown in the 35th annual Pepsi/Daily Herald Elgin Holiday Boys Basketball Tournament.
Facing the prospect of a .500 record with a loss, Batavia started and finished strong, doubling up a junior-heavy Dundee-Crown team, 62-31.
"Dundee's a young and rebuilding team that plays extremely hard," Batavia coach Jim Roberts said. "I thought our kids came out with a purpose, especially with a tough loss (Monday)."
After watching Rolling Meadows rally past them in the fourth quarter on Monday, the Bulldogs made sure that the only concern in the final quarter would be playing time for reserves.
"We knew they were young and hungry and we just wanted to come out real hard," said Batavia senior Ricky Clopton, who led all scorers with 16 points. "I don't think they could get anything going against our zone. We executed and played consistent."
Batavia (6-4) jumped ahead 24-13 during a fast-paced first quarter. The Chargers tried to slow the pace to open the second quarter, and while they had some success doing so, they also struggled in hanging onto the ball as turnovers would plague them all morning.
The Chargers committed 24 turnovers. They only scored 12 points in the second half while turning the ball over 15 times.
"It's hard to win many games when you're going to turn the ball over 24 times and some of those were unforced," Dundee-Crown coach Lance Huber said. "We gave them too many extra chances while taking them away from ourselves. We definitely could've used those extra chances."
When they didn't turn the ball over, the Chargers struggled finding open looks, scoring just 18 points after the first quarter. A lot of that had to do with the presence of Batavia's big men, Clopton, Cole Gardner and Elliot Vaughn.
"I thought our big guys did a nice job of rotating and utilizing our size advantage," Roberts said. "I thought we did a nice job of communicating."
Jesse Coffey scored 12 points for the Bulldogs while Gardner, Vaughn and Sam Shump each contributed a half dozen apiece.
Batavia will continue tournament play at noon on Wednesday versus Glenbrook South (3-6).
Dundee-Crown, which lost its sixth straight to fall to 1-7, was led by Ryan Smith's 10 points. The Chargers take on Willowbrook at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday.