Burlington Central knocks off Larkin
The Burlington Central boys basketball team wasn’t at its best Tuesday night, but still earned its fifth consecutive victory.
The Rockets couldn’t put away four-win Larkin until late in the fourth quarter in a 67-61 nonconference victory over the Royals in Elgin.
“We could have executed on both ends better,” Central coach Brett Porto said. “I guess when it all comes down to it, we did just enough and executed just well enough to come out of here with a road win.”
Larkin (4-21), which has lost nine straight, led early 6-2 before the Rockets (16-9) went on an 8-0 run, six coming on a pair of 3-pointers from Jared Moxness, to take a 10-6 lead. Central never trailed again.
The Rockets led 20-12 after the first quarter and by 9, 28-19, midway through the second. Quantice Hunter scored seven points in the final 3 minutes of the quarter and Brent Cooks hit a layup at the buzzer to get the Royals within 2, 35-33, at halftime.
“You would like to have more (consistency) come February,” Larkin coach Deryn Carter said. “We have in the past couple of weeks, just not today. Hopefully, we got our bad one out of us, as for as inconsistency.”
Cooks, who finished with 12 points and 7 rebounds, scored again to open the second half to tie the game, 35-35. Sam Klein and Ray Hunnicutt combined for 9 points in the quarter as the Rockets took a 49-41 lead into the fourth.
The Royals got within 3, 53-50, with 4:45 left on a Cooks basket. But Central went on an 11-0 run to open a 64-50 advantage with 1:24 remaining to put the game away.
“The win streak is huge for us,” said Hunnicutt, who scored his 1,000th point Tuesday. “We wanted to finish this month undefeated, keep it going until regionals. We’ve got that still, but got to finish it Thursday (at Richmond-Burton with a share of Big Northern East crown on the line).”
Hunnicutt, a junior in his third varsity season, entered the game with 998 points and got his 1,000th point on a layup with 4:19 left in the first quarter. He led Central with 19 points, including 12 in the second half. Klein added 15 points and 7 rebounds. Moxness had 11 off the bench.
Hunter had 12 points for the Royals. Cam Ross added 10 points.