Neuqua cleans up on boards to beat South Elgin

Even on a night when Neuqua Valley coach Todd Sutton thought his team never quite found an offensive rhythm against visiting South Elgin, there was one play that worked exceedingly well for the Wildcats.

It's called the missed shot.

The Wildcats turned many of their 18 offensive rebounds - with 7 accumulated by Dwayne Evans, who also had 19 total caroms in the game - into putback baskets, which was enough to spell the difference in a 61-54 defeat of the Storm in a crucial Upstate Eight Conference tilt.

"I thought we struggled offensively because they played physical defense and shut our offense down," Sutton said. "The second chances kept us alive."

For South Elgin coach Chaz Taft, seeing all those missed Neuqua shots end up back in the hands of the Wildcats was his worst nightmare come true.

"We knew that was coming," he said. "We told our guys we had to get the first rebound. By them getting the third or fourth rebound it's about 80 percent they're going to make the layup."

Fundamentals on the boards was just one area that Taft thought his squad came up short in the game, as the Storm compounded Neuqua's 46-30 rebounding edge by missing half of its 16 free throws and, by Taft's calculations, "six or seven layups."

Those deficiencies enabled the Wildcats (20-1, 6-0) to lead for most of the night, though the Storm (13-7, 4-2) never trailed by more than 9. Despite Evans picking up 2 fouls in less than five minutes, Neuqua took a 10-9 lead after one quarter. When Evans returned in the second period, he teamed with Kareem Amedu for 6 offensive boards and 13 points to help the Wildcats to a 29-23 lead at halftime.

Tommy Childs almost singlehandedly kept the Storm in the contest at that point, using a variety of twisting forays to the basket to total 9 points in the second quarter. Childs then hit a pair of 3-pointers in the final 28 seconds of the third quarter to pull South Elgin within 44-39 with eight minutes to play.

An ominous sign for the Storm going into the final quarter was that three starters had 3 or 4 fouls, with Taft's worst fears realized when Childs fouled out with four minutes to play. In his absence Sam Sutter, who had picked up 3 fouls in the first half, canned a pair of 3-pointers, the second of which came in a 7-0 run that helped pull the Storm within 58-54 on Dillon Gardner's steal and layup with 90 seconds to play.

South Elgin could get no closer as Evans, Rahjan Muhammad and Greg Williams made free throws in the final 45 seconds to close it out, though the Wildcats did make just 19 of 34 attempts in the game.

"I thought it was a tough, physical game," said Sutton of a game that featured 46 fouls between the two teams. "I didn't think we did anything wrong, but South Elgin did a lot right. It was a great conference game, like it's supposed to be; we're bloody, they're bloody."