CL South handles Dundee-Crown
Crystal Lake South's 1-3-1 trap wasn't a problem for Dundee-Crown's boys basketball team 3 weeks ago.
D-C won that game by 16 points on its home floor and looked to be turning the page in the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division.
But since then, D-C has dropped 5 of its last 6, and in this installment the 1-3-1 proved to be a major problem as South forced 27 Charger turnovers and outscored D-C 20-2 in the fourth quarter to grab a 51-31 win at Gator Alley Tuesday night.
"Our guys really worked hard to create a lot of turnovers and our offense in the half court wasn't executed the best so those turnovers gave us a lot of opportunities," said Gators coach Dan DeBruycker, whose team piled up 15 steals.
Due to the Gator defense, which was badly needed because the offense wasn't there on a 38 percent clip from the field, a Charger pass went directly to coach Lance Huber, who almost slammed the ball to the ground in total frustration late in the third quarter.
"Sometimes we just dropped it, sometimes we threw it to coach on the sidelines. Sometimes we didn't catch it, sometimes we threw it right to their hands. It was ugly," Huber said.
Amid all the turnovers, D-C (11-12, 3-6) closed to within 2 with 2 minutes left in the third quarter. The Chargers held South to just 6 points in the third but couldn't get a shot to fall to grab the lead. The Chargers shot just 29 percent from the field to add to those turnovers.
The bottom really fell out as D-C managed just 1 bucket in the final 8 minutes as turnovers kept piling up while South (14-10, 3-6) turned on the jets defensively, scoring 18 straight points to finish.
South's defense may be key down this final stretch. With regionals in their sights as the conference race has been determined, this win and back-to-back wins over Barrington and Jacobs has the Gators looking up, like most who guard center Tyler Dawson. Dawson's 11 points weren't a team high, but DeBruycker praised the 6-foot-6 big man for being a major catalyst.
"I think on both ends he did a great job getting to the free throw line offensively and did a good job creating turnovers defensively,." DeBruycker said.
"I felt defensively we shut them down and we've been running the 1-3-1 really well," said Dawson, who had 4 rebounds and 3 blocks. "We know their guards don't like as much pressure as most so we used our length, and just getting deflections. Those deflections turned into turnovers."
South's defense stopped two D-C surges in the second and third quarters. South led by 7 in the second quarter on Kevin Rogers' layup with 5:22 left but watched D-C cut the lead to 3 shortly before the half. Kevin Cronin's layup late in the third cut the lead to 2. Rogers kept the Chargers at bay with 16 points, 7 of which came in the third where South went extremely cold shooting 3 of 13 from the field.
Cronin led the Chargers with 11 points.