Geneva shocks St. Charles North
Dan Trimble pulled a disappearing act that would have made Harry Houdini proud by somehow eluding the media for postgame comments Friday night.
But the Geneva Viking senior forward did anything but disappear against visiting St. Charles North in leading his team to a 57-47 victory in the regular-season and Upstate Eight River Division finale.
Trimble bushwhacked the North Stars with a game-high 25 points that included an 8-point burst midway through the fourth-quarter that broke open what had been a tight contest all night.
Trimble added a game-high 8 rebounds and helped a Geneva defense that held St. Charles North to only 6 points in the fourth quarter of the game between Tri-Cities rivals.
“When he makes shots, it makes a lot of what we do look like we are geniuses,” Geneva coach Phil Ralston said of the red-hot shooting of Trimble, who made 9-of-12 shots from the floor and sank all four of his free throws.
“Our kids did a nice job of finding him, and we ran some good sets that got him some good looks at the basket,” Ralston added. “He did a nice job of being able to go to the basket in the post instead of fading away and he did a nice job of being able to catch away from the basket and square up and just hit rhythm shots.”
It was a rhythm that St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin didn’t care to see, especially when Trimble was a one-man wrecking crew with those 8 unanswered points in pushing Geneva to a 54-43 lead with less than three minutes left in the game.
One basket came on an inside power move after a nice pass from Alex Frederking, then two others were 3-point bombs after drives into the lane and passes from Dan Hince and Brad Bernhard.
“The game plan is not to leave Trimble open, and we did our best, but he’s just that good,” Poulin said.
St. Charles North (14-13, 8-4) started quickly with a 6-0 burst, as Josh Mikes scored four of his team-high 14 points. But the game settled into a tug of war, even though the North Stars opened a 25-17 lead on a Brandon Bayman basket midway through the second quarter.
A pattern of turnovers and missed shots plagued both teams in spurts, each time allowing the other team to catch up.
Geneva (12-16, 6-6) did just that, closing the first half with a 10-1 run and a 27-26 lead on a Drew White tip-in at the buzzer.
Quinten Payne (8 points) returned the favor of a buzzer beater with a three-pointer to end the third quarter, leaving the teams knotted at 41-41 entering the final period.
Dan Hince opened the fourth quarter for Geneva with a three-pointer for a 44-41 lead that the Vikings would never relinquish, and the North Stars couldn’t respond after Trimble’s outburst.
Things got physical when Geneva went to a 1-3-1 zone and Viking guard Phil Lorenz, at 5-11, found himself wrapped up often with the 6-4 Payne, whose elbow caught Lorenz in the nose and had the Geneva junior seeing stars for a few minutes.
“It was near the end of the game and obviously we are really getting into it then, and he (Payne) threw an elbow that I thought was intentional,” Lorenz said. “It just gets physical and I expect that and I have no hard feelings toward him because we were just battling.
“But he’s a lot taller than I am, so I have to kind of push him in the lower half and just work hard and that’s all I can do.”
Poulin was looking for that kind of hard work out of his team, but he was ready to put the loss behind him and start focusing on the postseason.
“We’ll just move on,” Poulin said. “We’ve been playing good basketball as of late and it involved playing defense, but tonight we didn’t decide to play any defense, to be honest with you.
“That’s about as bad as we have looked defensively in a long time, so we’re better than that, and we’ll move on,” Poulin added. “It takes a little bit of effort and activity and Geneva played harder on offense than we did on defense, and they played harder on defense than we did on offense, and that’s the difference.”
Geneva held a 24-20 edge in rebounding, and both teams shot well from the floor, with Geneva hitting 23 of 45 shots and St. Charles North hitting 19 of 39.
“This was a big game on the schedule for us, and I wish it was for something like a conference title, but it wasn’t meant to be for us this season,” Ralston said. “But at least we can walk out with our heads high by beating a Tri-Cities rival.
“I think the kids really, really wanted this game tonight,” Ralston added. “This was a Batavia-type win for us tonight.”
The Vikings open regional play at 7:30 p.m. Monday against Plainfield East in the Naperville North regional, while St. Charles North squares off against Bartlett in the 7:30 p.m. Wednesday contest in the St. Charles East regional.
As it turned out, the North Stars could have shared the conference title if they beat Geneva with Elgin, who fell to 9-3 in the UEC River with a loss to Streamwood Friday.