Dundee-Crown falls at Elgin

Dundee-Crown coach Lance Huber didn't want the 36th annual Elgin Holiday Boys Basketball Tournament to end the way it did Wednesday morning for his Chargers.

"I don't think you ever want to go into break with a loss," Huber said after the Chargers lost to Highland Park 44-34. The Chargers ended the tourney 1-3 and Huber knows there's work ahead. "We're going to have to keep working and get better," he said.

It wasn't a particularly bad shooting day for the Chargers. They shot 50 percent on 24 shots. Highland Park was just better at 60 percent, missing only 5 in the second half. But it was more than just that.

"If they missed the shot, we didn't get the rebound," Huber said, as Highland Park grabbed 6 key offensive rebounds."That might have been frustrating.

"Obviously guys made some bad passes they don't mean to make them. It's frustrating when you turn it over. That's just the way it goes. People make mistakes and nobody means to make them. When you work hard and they get a second shot, it makes it tough."

The Giants (6-7) didn't have issues with the turnovers as the Chargers (6-4) did with 18, but did find their fluid offense to be the key to led by junior point guard Jake Norcia.

"A lot of it starts out front," Giants coach Paul Harris said of his point guard. "I thought Norcia did a great job getting us into our offense and we executed our stuff well. But it starts upfront and you need a guard who can get you into stuff whose a threat offensively. I think this tournament was great for him."

Norcia scored 7 of his game-high 13 points in the second quarter, including a 3-pointer from the left wing and a running floater in the lane during a 9-3 run that ultimately spelled the end for D-C.

It was Norcia's play that helped cap off two very productive games at Elgin to get his confidence back.

"The first few games I didn't really shoot with any confidence," he said. "The last two days, a lot more confident. The first two games we didn't come ready to play. The last two days, earlier games, we really came ready to play, finished the tournament strong. I'm excited for the second half of the year."

It was never out of reach for Dundee-Crown, as it hovered around the 10-point mark. Every time D-C had something going, Highland Park fired back with a jumper.

"I thought we were going to have a run in us, we just couldn't get a couple possessions, couldn't get any momentum," Huber said. "We'd make a basket but we couldn't get a score, stop and a score to get some momentum. I thought we were going to have one but just couldn't get it going."

Ryan Smith led the Chargers with 10 points.