Huntley storms back to nip Dundee-Crown
Slowing things down might seem like an odd solution for a team that had scored only 15 points in 19 minutes, yet that was how Huntley rallied from a 9-point deficit to win 45-43 at Dundee-Crown Wednesday.
After Dundee-Crown took a 25-16 lead with 5:33 to play in the third quarter, Huntley coach Marty Manning told his team to stop forcing and start passing.
"We were forcing up a lot of shots and I think I took a big part in that," said Huntley junior Dylan Neukirch, who missed his first 5 attempts. " Coach (Marty Manning) told us to slow down and make at least five passes before we could shoot. That helped a lot and got us going."
The result? Huntley (12-5, 1-1) scored 29 points in the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division boys basketball game's final 13 minutes to tag Dundee-Crown (1-15, 0-3) with its 14th consecutive defeat.
"We talked at halftime how the game was going to be won by making defensive stops and we couldn't get them when we needed them," Chargers coach Lance Huber said. "They needed them and they got them."
Huntley rallied to tie the game at 28 at the end of three quarters, thanks to a three-point play by freshman Bryce Only, 2 free throws from sophomore Troy Miller and 7 points from Neukirch, including back-to-back long jumpers, the second of which knotted the score with 55 seconds left in the period.
The Chargers regained the lead twice early in the fourth quarter on baskets by junior Ryan Smith (9 points), but Miller's 3-pointer from the corner with 5:57 left in the game gave the Red Raiders a 33-32 lead and ignited a 12-2 run over the next 3:28. Sophomore Justin Frederick keyed that run with a pair of baskets, including a one-handed runner in the lane that increased Huntley's lead to 40-34 with 3:43 left. He led all scorers with 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting.
However, the Chargers had one last rally in them. A 7-0 run, which included a layup by junior Kevin Cronin and Smith's 3-pointer from the top of the arc, was capped when Thomas McNally notched a layup after Huntley turned the ball over on an inbounds pass. McNally's bucket pulled D-C within 42-41 with 28 seconds left.
"In my mind I thought it would be nice to get a free ball like that, and then it happened," McNally said.
Huntley also threw away the ensuing inbounds pass. D-C's Kirchhoff grabbed the loose ball in the lane and shot for the tie, but his contested shot didn't fall with 20.5 seconds left. The Raiders hauled in the rebound, and Adrian Avelar sank 2 free throws to extend the lead to 44-41 with 19.5 remaining.
Avelar came up with a great strip on D-C's next possession, and Frederick split 2 free throws after he was fouled to make it a 2-possession game with 10.4 seconds left.
"It was a wild finish there," Manning said. "I was just happy my guys came back. We did a lot of things poorly in that first half in terms of being patient and looking for shots we wanted. In the third quarter I thought we did a great job of it to build that lead up. To almost give it away at the end would have been very disheartening."
Kirchhoff (6 points) scored at the other end with two seconds remaining to provide the final margin.
"I thought our guys did a great job not giving up," Huber said, "but the game was probably decided in the third quarter when they really took it to us and we just couldn't respond and get a stop when we needed it."