York jumps on Rolling Meadows

Kevin Katovich knew exactly where his Rolling Meadows’ basketball team’s problems lie after Wednesday night’s loss to York in Palatine’s Ed Molitor Classic.

“We came out flat in the first quarter,” he said of falling behind 14-2 after one quarter. And? “We’re not doing a real good job defensively.”

So noted. Taller, slicker York worked hard for open looks and kept the Mustangs (0-2) off the boards in a 70-50 victory.

The Mustangs never got a handle on super-swift guard David Cohn (23 points), who hit four 3-pointers while the Dukes built a 30-22 rebounding advantage. Meadows had an early field goal and didn’t score again until the 5:59 mark of the second quarter when Brian Nelms (team-high 13) hit a jumper. York scored 18 straight in the interim.

The teams played pretty evenly from there with Meadows never able to get the lead under double-digits despite some streaky shooting occasionally from Tyler Gaedele (8 points), with long-range support from Mike Weingart, Jack Milas and Eric Lowe. But York’s Frank Toohey (10 points) offset that by pacing a York dominance inside.

“We’ve got to do a much better job defensively,” said Katovich. “We’ve got to clean things up defensively.”