Elgin patiently wins first holiday tournament game

You'd figure a six-game losing skid and an 8:45 a.m. start would be a horrible combination for Elgin, but two wrongs made a right and a strong third quarter from the Maroons helped snap their streak as they defeated Rockford Guilford 57-54 at the Elgin Holiday Tournament on Wednesday.

Elgin (3-8) led by as many as 6 when Kory Brown (15 points, 9 boards) sank a 3-pointer 2:30 in the second quarter, but trailed at the half 23-22 after an 8-1 Guilford run in the final 2 minutes. But Brown and Brandon Baymon combined for 14 of Elgin's 24 third-quarter points to take a 46-36 lead into the fourth.

"We knew exactly what we had to do, I just said, I'm not going to coach you, go out and play by yourselves and do what you're supposed to do. That first group in the third quarter did it," Maroons coach Mike Sitter said. "If you notice, we didn't sub in the third quarter until just about two minutes left, took a couple timeouts there because they were doing a good job and those who play well are going to play a lot and that was kind of the reward for them, to not come out of the game."

Elgin slowed the pace in the third and penetrated inside. Baymon's backdoor cut began the quarter and Brown's putback a minute later gave Elgin a 26-23 lead. With 5:34 left, Jordan Dean's steal and breakaway extended the lead to 4. Dean also hit a 3-pointer on the next possession, and then Brown's layup with 3:02 remaining had Elgin up 10. His pretty spin to the glass with 1:30 left capped a 15-4 run, giving Elgin its largest lead of 13.

"Usually we're a quick team and people catch on to that. So we slowed it down a little and got some easy buckets like that," Baymon said.

"That's something you don't get to practice too much, the delay game," Sitter added. "Telling athletic kids to slow down, is tough. It's very tough. They only know how to go one speed. But, we're learning how to slow it down."

Elgin forced 14 turnovers and won the rebounding battle 39-28. Guilford grabbed an 18-16 advantage on the offensive glass and built an 8-4 run in the fourth with baskets by Alonte Holliday (18 points) and Quavion Kimble (13 points, 6 rebounds) which cut the Maroon lead to 6 with 2:30 remaining.

Guilford shot 21 of 54 from the field and nothing fell late, allowing Elgin to put away the game at the charity stripe.

"We play in streaks and were trying to find a high level of play consistently," Sitter said. "It was nice to put together four good quarters because earlier in this tournament, we played with anybody in the first half then we'd kind of lose our focus."