Waubonsie Valley adjusts, defeats South Elgin

Waubonsie Valley had to change its style of play to pull out a win against South Elgin on Friday.

The Storm used its trademark half-court offense to slow the game down, but the Warriors, behind Jared Brownbridge’s 17 points, along with some timely free-throw shooting down the stretch, earned a 45-42 home victory in the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division opener for both teams.

“You’ve got to give (South Elgin coach) Chaz (Taft) and his team a lot of credit,” Waubonsie Valley coach Steve Weemer said. “They run their half-court system so good. We played to their tempo, which was a little disconcerting to us, but the bottom line is we won. We’re going to forget about this game, move on and get ready for Naperville Central.”

The Warriors (5-0, 1-0) entered the second quarter with a 9-8 lead before South Elgin’s Darius Wells knocked down a 3 from the corner, giving the Storm its last lead of the game at 11-9.

Waubonsie Valley outscored South Elgin (4-2, 0-1) 14-1 the rest of the half as Bryan Jefferson scored 6 of his 9 points during that stretch. At one point the Warriors scored six points off of four straight Storm turnovers.

South Elgin turned the ball over seven times in the second quarter and made only 4 field goals in the first half.

The Storm limited its mistakes and went on a 9-0 run to start the third quarter when it forced Waubonsie Valley into five turnovers.

South Elgin trimmed an 11-point halftime deficit to 23-21 after a Jacob Maestranzi 3-pointer.

“I thought we did a great job of taking care of the basketball in the second half,” Taft said. “We got a little rattled in the first half and we lost our composure.”

The Warriors finally answered with a 3-pointer from sophomore Jack Cordes six minutes into the third quarter, which was Waubonsie Valley’s first field goal of the second half. A turnaround jumper at the third-quarter buzzer by Jefferson extended the Warriors lead to 30-23 heading into the final eight minutes.

Three 3-point baskets by South Elgin in the final minute kept the game within reach, but the Warriors finished 6 of 8 at the free-throw line in that last minute as Jared Brownbridge was 4 of 6 during that stretch. Maestranzi knocked down two of those 3-pointers, including an off-balance shot with two seconds left.

“You’ve got to make layups and free throws to win a game like that and we made them when we needed to,” Weemer said. “We’re a young team and we’ve got some growing pains to go through, but we’ll keep getting better. I told the guys to just move forward.”