Cary-Grove blows out listless St. Edward
It was a much-needed laugher from the Cary-Grove perspective, but no one on the St. Edward bench cracked a smile on the opening day of the Jacobs Holiday Boys Basketball Tournament Saturday.
The Class 2A Green Wave didn't play with the effort necessary to compete with other 2A teams, let alone a bigger, stronger Class 4A school like Cary-Grove. The Wave's overall lack of enthusiasm in their second game in 16 hours was reflected by the 62-35 final score in Cary-Grove's favor.
“It's always very difficult to play two games back to back,” St. Edward coach P.J. White said. “We played really hard (Friday) night, but we didn't play very hard (Saturday). We did a disservice to the team we were playing against, I thought.
“But it's a tournament and we've got another game (Monday), so we've got to go back and regroup and try it again. We have good kids. They just have to deal with back to back to back to back now.”
The Jacobs tournament resumes Monday with four games in four days for all 16 teams.
Cary-Grove (4-5) held St. Edward (3-5) without a field goal until Michael Ellis sank a 3-pointer from the corner with 34 seconds left in the second quarter.
Regardless, the Trojans led 30-12 at halftime, powered by 10 points from 6-foot-6 forward Alex Posey and 7 points from Matt Aulert (6-3). Aulert finished with a game-best 15 points; Posey added 12.
“Obviously, we had a size advantage,” Cary-Grove coach Ralph Schuetzle said. “Night in, night out we don't have that. Those two guys in particular need to find a way to score points. When they can score points, that takes pressure off (guards Nick) Richter and (Jon) Guay and now you've got four guys and some balance.”
The victory was welcome relief for the Trojans, who had lost 4 out of 5 games, including a 23-point loss to Grayslake Central on Thursday.
“To finally get a big win was really nice for our team,” Posey said. “One of the big things we want to work on is to have fun. We weren't having fun before this game, so it's good. It's good for our confidence.”