Huntley seals FVC Valley championship
Tyler Brunschon had been in a bit of a shooting slump. A little extra work in the gym with his brother Todd was apparently all he needed to snap out of it.
Brunschon scored 15 of his game-high 24 points in the first half as Huntley stormed out to a big lead and defeated Cary-Grove, 64-42, in Huntley. With the win, the Red Raiders (21-4, 9-1) claimed outright the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division boys basketball championship.
Brunschon scored 10 points in the first quarter as the Raiders opened a 13-6 lead. They extended it to 34-13 by halftime and 50-22 after 3 quarters.
Troy Miller added 10 points and Justin Frederick 8 for the Raiders. Bryce Only had 6 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and a block.
“I came into the school this morning and shot around,” said Brunschon. “My brother helped me get my confidence back. I was struggling shooting a little bit.
“Playing for a conference title always gets you motivated to play.”
Huntley shot 52 percent for the game to Cary-Grove’s 29 percent and outrebounded the Trojans 29-14.
“I thought we played a very good first half,” said Huntley coach Marty Manning. “Defensively we were solid, we made some shots against their zone to get them out of their zone, and we continued to push the ball up the floor and got some easy baskets.”
Cary-Grove coach Ralph Schuetzle tried to find some positives.
“The bright spot tonight was (Jake) Bianchi,” said Schuetzle. “He showed that he can get into the lane where we need him to get and he was a big reason why we had a pretty darn good fourth quarter.
“We had 29 points in the second half. We’ve got to try to find some positives here.”
Bianchi was one of several players forced into bigger roles as a couple of Trojans missed the game with the flu. Bianchi and Nick Richter keyed a late comeback. Richter had 7 of his 11 points in the fourth quarter, when Cary-Grove (10-15, 4-6) outscored the hosts 20-14.
Jon Guay also had 11 points for Cary-Grove, including three 3-pointers.
Cary-Grove took its only lead at 2-0, but Brunschon and Miller made 3-pointers, Brunschon made another basket for an 8-2 lead, and the Red Raiders never looked back. Huntley led 34-10 before Guay’s 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer gave the Trojans some momentum going into halftime.