Hustle, defense key for Geneva

Geneva High School was a swirl of activity Tuesday night with a choir concert and a freshman basketball game taking place in addition to the main attraction of the Upstate Eight River Division varsity contest between the Vikings and Streamwood.

Those who chose to attend the varsity contest may have been thinking about exchanging their ticket stub for one of the other events as both teams sloshed through a sluggish first quarter.

But Geneva was the better slosher, opening a 12-2 lead after one period and eventually polishing off the Sabres with 23 points at the free-throw line in a 46-29 victory.

Geneva (4-2, 2-0) struggled with perimeter shooting most of the night, hitting only 1 of 8 3-point attempts, but the Vikings played a steady defense in three forms zone, man-to-man and three-quarter-court presses.

"It was one of those deals where we didn't hit shots very well, and we had good looks, but for whatever reason we were just cold," Geneva coach Phil Ralston said. "But the difference maker tonight was the defense. We've got the kids buying into playing real hard on defense and not giving anything good to the other team, and I tell you, we just went out there and hustled.

"That's what won the game, it was flat-out our defense," Ralston added. "We hustled and got the rebounds, and gave them only a couple of clean looks."

It also didn't hurt Geneva that forward Dan Trimble notched a game-high 12 points and 12 rebounds, even though the generally sharp-shooting senior was baffled with his team's slow start in scoring only 24 points through three quarters.

"It was a pretty slow game," Trimble said. "Usually we are pretty quick to get the ball into the post, but it took a little while tonight, but once we got it down there, it was good."

That occurred after the Vikings abandoned the outside shot and started attacking the basket with Brendan Leahy (10 points), Will Doeckel (9 points) and Brad Bernhard (8 points) drawing fouls or scoring in close.

Despite its own offensive woes, Streamwood (3-5, 0-1) crept within 6 points at 22-16 late in the third quarter after center Bobby Post scored inside. When Post went down with a knee injury moments later, and a shot by Jerald Ofiana rimmed in and out, the Sabres never threatened again.

Trimble hit a pull-up jumper to end the third quarter, and the Vikings sank 18 free throws in the fourth quarter to pull away from Streamwood and remain undefeated in conference action.

"One of the keys tonight was that our posts needed to beat their posts, and I think we did that," Ralston said.

Streamwood was never able to get into a consistent flow on offense, as the taller Geneva guards disrupted the Sabres all night. Ofiana led Streamwood in scoring with only 6 points.

"Their second-chance points in the first half, and our lack of getting a basket was the difference early, but then we got it down to 6 points and had a shot roll out that could have cut it to four," Streamwood coach Tim Jones said.

"At times we don't look pretty, but we play hard," Jones said of his team. "But Geneva played well, and we didn't get off to a great start."

Streamwood made only 10 of 34 shots from the floor for 29 percent, but Geneva didn't fare much better with only 11 field goals in 31 attempts for 35 percent.

It was the 23-6 edge in points at the free-throw line that made the difference.

"It was nice we were able to finish the game at the line," Ralston said. "It was probably the first game where we've really had to do that, but we will take it any way we can get it."