Dantzler boosts Dundee-Crown over CL South
Dundee-Crown guard Bruce Dantzler is the Dundee-Crown boys basketball team’s answer to Red Bull.
The junior came off the bench in Saturday’s 52-36 victory over Crystal Lake South to further energize the Chargers, who were already leading 17-6 when Dantzler got hot.
With center Jamel Kimbrough riding the bench with 2 fouls, Dantzler sank three 3-pointers and scored 11 of D-C’s points during a 12-0 run to put his team ahead 29-6 with 1:16 left in the first half. He finished with 13 points, 3 shy of his season high, 7 rebounds and 2 steals.
“I just do whatever needs to be done,” Dantzler said of his role. “Like if Kimbrough or Ryan Smith is having a good game in the post, I don’t really need to shoot. But if they’re not having the best game they could, I just step my role up more.
“I just fill in the blanks. I’m like the piece to the puzzle.”
“He’s that igniter,” said Smith, who scored 12 points and grabbed 6 rebounds. “He totally sparked us and got us going. He’s that perfect sixth man coming off the bench. If the game’s moving slow, all the sudden Bruce is in and — bam! — he’s getting steals, he’s knocking down threes.”
It was the fourth straight loss in the Valley Division of the Fox Valley Conference for Crystal Lake South (9-8, 0-4), which struggled across the board in the first half. The Gators made only 2-of-12 shots, turned the ball over 10 times and failed to sink a field goal for the final 13:51 of the first half.
Dundee-Crown (10-6, 2-2) outscored CL South 26-4 in that span and solved the Gators’ 1-3-1 half-court trap to shoot 10 of 16 from the field for the half (62.5 percent).
“It was like a perfect storm in the first half,” CL South coach Dan DeBruycker said. “We didn’t execute anything we talked about and they knocked down a bunch of shots.
“In the second half we had more open looks, but in the in the first half the couple of open looks we did have they worried about the scoreboard. They weren’t even concerned about making the shot because they were so concerned with not scoring.”
The Gators didn’t get on track offensively until they opened the fourth quarter with a 10-0 run. Trailing 40-17, Gavin Rubin and Ryan Price each sank 3-pointers to fuel a 10-0 run, but it was too late to make much of a dent. CL South hit only 3-of-18 attempts from 3-point range, 0 of 9 in the first half.
“We just wanted to make sure we guarded their shooters,” D-C coach Lance Huber said.
Driving layups by Smith on consecutive possessions restored D-C’s lead to 15 and the Chargers sank 8-of-12 free throws in the final 3:08 to keep the Gators at bay.
Kimbrough finished with 10 points and 5 rebounds for Dundee-Crown. Senior Tyler Kretchmer led CL South with 10 points and 5 rebounds.