Hampshire downs South Elgin
The Hampshire boys basketball team showed South Elgin Watz up Saturday night.
Tyler Watzlawick, Hampshire’s 6-foot-7 junior center, demonstrated his return to health after a 3-game absence due to an ankle injury by scoring a game-best 15 points to go with 6 rebounds in a 48-43 nonconference victory that spoiled South Elgin’s Senior Night.
“It hurt a little bit, but it was pretty good,” Watzlawick said of his ankle. “I’ve been here the past two years and never beaten them, so that felt pretty good. Plus, we got our 20th win of the season, and that was one of our goals.”
Hampshire’s center looked just fine to his coach, who had some free advice for his big man after the game.
“I saved him 50 bucks tonight — I told him to ice it, elevate and take some aspirin,” cracked ninth-year Hampshire coach Bob Barnett, who lauded Watzlawick’s mobility. “I’m a few credits shy of my medical degree, but I think that’ll work.”
The Class 3A Whip-Purs beat the Class 4A Storm by building an early lead, then responding to South Elgin’s second-half charge.
Hampshire (20-4), outright champions of the Big Northern East, led 28-22 at halftime and 35-28 late in the third quarter, but South Elgin (14-12) rallied with a 10-2 run to take its first and only lead of the contest. That push was capped by Matthew Downing’s layup on a feed from Dillon Gardner with 4:08 left in the game.
The South Elgin advantage lasted only 9 seconds, however, as sophomore Shane Hernandez broke the South Elgin press with an alley-oop pass to Watzlawick for a layup. Hernandez and Watzlawick each sank a pair of free throws on ensuing Hampshire possessions to restore the lead to 5 points.
A jump shot by South Elgin sophomore point guard Jake Maestranzi (9 points), pulled the Storm within 45-43 with 26.4 seconds left, but Hampshire sophomore guard Tyler Crater was fouled and sank both ends of the bonus to up the lead to 4 points.
South Elgin senior Sam Sutter, the focus of Hampshire’s box-and-one defense at times, missed a 3-point attempt and Gardner was unable to sink a baseline jump shot after he gathered the offensive rebound.
Sutter, the second-leading scorer in the Fox Valley area at 19.6 ppg, was held to 11 points on 2-of-15 shooting. He was 1 of 12 from 3-point range.
“Shots weren’t going our way and they were hitting shots,” Sutter said. “We just have to get over that hump. They played great defense. When I’ve got open looks I have to take advantage of it, but tonight they just weren’t falling for me.”
Nor were shots falling for any of South Elgin’s players.
“We just didn’t shoot the ball well,” said South Elgin coach Chaz Taft, whose team shot 6 of 25 from beyond the arc (24 percent) and 16 of 39 overall (41 percent).
Watzlawick grabbed the rebound of Gardner’s miss, was immediately fouled and split a pair at the line with 3 seconds left to account for the final margin.
“It’s big,” Barnett said of the victory. “It was our 20th win, so we’ve covered two goals with conference and 20. I just got done telling them we’re not done yet.”
Hernandez finished with 11 points and 5 rebounds and David Wilson and Crater each added 7 points for the Whip-Purs.