Vernon Hills zeroing in again
Different zeros. Same heroes.
Eight members of Vernon Hills' football team who helped the Cougars post 7 shutouts in their first seven games are showing their penchant for zeros again.
Vernon Hills' basketball team won Northridge Prep's season-opening tournament with a performance that included shutting out the host school in one quarter, and the Cougars have kept on winning.
"We were joking in the locker room (after the Northridge Prep game)," Cougars coach Matt McCarty said. "We said, 'We need to expect this all the time from you guys. You guys should be used to these shutouts.' "
Vernon Hills still has a zero on the right side of its won-lost record, too, after breaking open a close game against visiting Antioch in the third quarter and pulling away to win 72-47 in a North Suburban Prairie Division opener.
All-state football player DaVaris Daniels led Vernon Hills (6-0) with a game-high 21 points, 8 rebounds and 5 steals.
Daniels' football/basketball teammates are Chris Argianas, Stephen Curry, MJ Crowley, Jarrett Wood, John Foley, Brian Berzanski and Dustin Rusch.
The eight joined the basketball team four days before its season opener, after the football team reached the Class 6A state quarterfinals. The ball has changed. The winning has not.
"I think it does carry over," Daniels said. "That aspect of just going out and competing is still there."
Antioch (0-4), meanwhile, is having a hard time competing for four quarters, in part, because it's playing without key players. Rugged forward Karl Nettgen hurt his knee in the Sequoits' season opener and remains sidelined. On Friday, skilled guards Mike Siperko and Mike Barakat each started serving a four-game suspension for an athletic-code violation.
"Our game plan was to keep the score low because of all the guys that we have out," said Antioch coach Michael Skinner, whose team trailed 14-12 after one quarter and 28-20 at halftime. "(We wanted) to value the possessions and make (Vernon Hills) play for 20 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute. But we didn't look up for opportunities to score in transition."
Darren Hoveydai sparked the Cougars in the third quarter. The junior guard sank a pair of 3-pointers and fed Berzanski for a layup, before putting in a miss to give the hosts a 51-35 edge heading into the fourth.
Hoveydai, the brother of former Cougars star Riaz Hoveydai, who's now playing at Lake Forest College, finished with a season-high 13 points.
"He's a great dribbler," Daniels said. "He has great vision, so that creates easy opportunities for us because he can drive the defense into him and then dish it off to somebody that can score."
Vernon Hills closed the third with an 18-7 run after Anthony Formella's pull-up jumper got Antioch within 33-28 midway the quarter. Argianas (11 points) knocked down one of his three 3-pointers in third.
Niko Escanilla came off the bench and sank a pair of 3s on the night.
"We got a lot of guys that can get to the paint and that just opens up shots on the outside," Hoveydai said. "Both starters and bench players, they just step up and make the big shot."
Vernon Hills scored 44 points after halftime and its defense gave Antioch problems, too.
"I thought we were getting lots of tips and deflections in the first half, which weren't leading to turnovers," McCarty said. "In that (third-quarter) spurt we finally started possessing the ball after we got deflections. I think the spurt was caused by our defensive pressure."
Antioch received 14 points apiece from William Waschow and Emery Paramski, who came off the bench to sink four 3s. Forward Sam Green had 13 points and 8 rebounds.
Antioch committed 31 turnovers.
"We thought we played a really good first half," Green said. "We were trying to slow the tempo down, because we don't have big numbers right now. But we need to be a better second-half team, especially in the third quarter."