Batavia puts streak on line at DeKalb
The outcome of tonight's Batavia-DeKalb game will go a long way to determining the winner of this year's Western Sun Conference race.
DeKalb enters as the only conference team with only 1 loss (against Glenbard South). Geneva and Batavia both have two conference losses.
One of the Bulldogs' two losses came to these Barbs back on Dec. 8, 59-51. Batavia only led once the entire game, early in the first quarter. DeKalb built a double-digit lead and held off the Bulldogs' fourth-quarter charge.
Senior guard Adam LeTourneau connected on six 3-pointers and led Batavia with 21 points in that loss. The Bulldogs are playing better basketball now with 8 straight wins. Ricky Clopton has scored 59 points in the last two victories.
DeKalb is coming off a 50-38 win over Kaneland Friday. Senior center Jordan Threloff led the Barbs with 15 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocked shots, not far from the 16-17-5 the Illinois State bound center had in his first meeting with the Bulldogs.
Short-handed Vikings: Geneva guard Will Doeckel and forward Connor Quinn grabbed plenty of loose balls and rebounds, and made some nice passes to teammates Friday night - but they did it in street clothes during the warmup shootaround before the conference game against Glenbard South.
Doeckel is suffering from mononucleosis and Quinn was injured the week before against Rochelle.
"We are not sure when we will get Will back, and we are hoping Connor can be back next week," Geneva coach Phil Ralston said. "We are a team desperate for depth right now."
That was evident in Friday's stirring comeback win over Glenbard South, as only five Vikings scored in the game.
JP Landry earned his first start of the season for Geneva and responded with seven critical points and four rebounds.
"We have some guys banged up and we're just trying to get through it," Ralston said. "Every team has to go through these periods."
Stepping up: Junior point guard Chris Conrad continues making strides that have impressed his St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin.
The latest came Saturday night against St. Charles East when Conrad scored 15 points, eight of them in the fourth quarter to help make the difference in a 62-54 win over the Saints.
"Chris is getting better at getting us into our sets and into our offense and taking care of the basketball," Poulin said. "Slowly but surely he's going to get to the point where he's one of the better players in the area."
Conrad is averaging 10 points and 3.1 assists, both second for the North Stars (12-9, 4-3), who return to action Friday against a Lake Park (9-8, 3-2) team in similar position in the Upstate Eight. Conrad also leads the team in steals (2.1 a game).
No rest for the weary: Like a lot of coaches, St. Charles East's Brian Clodi loves to use game film as a teaching tool.
And it doesn't take long for one game to end before Clodi starts dissecting the film. In fact, he said he doesn't go to bed until he has watched that night's game on tape.
"I can't sleep until I see it," Clodi said. "I need instant feedback."
John Lemon contributed to this report