Rockford Auburn too much for Huntley
Perfection might not have been good enough for the Huntley boys basketball team Friday night, and the Red Raiders were far from it.
Struggling on offense from the outset, Huntley fell behind big early and could never recover, losing 59-31 to Rockford Auburn in the championship game of the Class 4A Jacobs sectional before a standing-room-only crowd of more than 2,300.
“The better team won,” said Huntley coach Marty Manning. “I think we can beat them but the better team won tonight. They played fantastic.”
Auburn (26-4) will take on Glenbard East at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the NIU supersectional at the Convocation Center in DeKalb. Glenbard East ran away with East Aurora 80-62 Friday at the East Aurora sectional final. Auburn won its first sectional title since 1979.
Huntley (25-5) fell behind the Knights 7-0 and didn’t score for the first 6 minutes of the game when Troy Miller nailed a 3-pointer to make it 7-3. But Auburn went on a 7-2 run to close the first quarter with a 14-5 lead and then the Knights scored the first 10 points of the second quarter to grab a commanding 24-5 advantage with 3:12 left in the first half. The Knights led 28-9 at the break after making 11 of 22 shots in the first half while Huntley was 4-for-17.
Huntley, which was looking for its first sectional title since winning one in Class A in 2001, never got closer than 16 points the rest of the way and Auburn had as much as a 31-point lead late in the game. Auburn finished shooting 24 of 46, including 9 of 13 from 3-point range. Huntley was 12 of 39 from the field for the night, including 4 of 18 from 3-point land.
“You never expect to hold someone to 9 at halftime,” said Auburn coach Bryan Ott. “But the thing we take pride in is what we do defensively and I’m not sure (Huntley) was ready for the style we play.”
It just want’s Huntley’s night from 3-point land, which is where the Red Raiders won many games from during the season.
“We got a lot of good looks and some open 3s, we just couldn’t make them,” Manning said. “Because we dug ourselves a hole like that it made it easier on them shooting their jump shots. You look at a lead like that with a team like that and it’s just a very tough hill to climb.”
Auburn also outrebounded Huntley 27-20 and the Red Raiders had just 3 offensive rebounds.
“We did a poor job of getting after some loose balls,” Manning said. “There were at least 10-15 occasions where we had our hands on something and didn’t come up with it. That’s what makes them such a good team.”
No Huntley player cracked double figures. Miller and 6-foot-5 freshman Amanze Egekeze each had 9 points to lead the Red Raiders. Senior Dylan Neukirch added 7.
“They’re just a very good team and unfortunately shots weren’t going for us,” said Neukirch, one of just two seniors on Huntley’s team this season. “We didn’t play our game tonight.”
Tyler Brunschon, Huntley’s other senior, was held to 3 points and played limited minutes to do neck/back soreness sustained in Tuesday’s semifinal win over Elgin.
“It’s always a tough night when you struggle shooting,” Brunschon said. “They were a great team. They couldn’t miss and they kept attacking. We knew what they were going to do but they did a great job.”
Senior Anthony Strickland led Auburn with 17 points, including hitting 5 of 8 from 3-point range. Junior LaMark Foote added 13 points and junior Fred Van Fleet had 12 for the Knights, who had just 9 turnovers in the game — 2 in the first half — compared to Huntley’s 13.