Rolling Meadows tips Buffalo Grove
Rolling Meadows had a rough start against three tough teams in Palatine’s Thanksgiving boys basketball tournament.
That toughened up the Mustangs for Friday night’s Mid-Suburban East opener and they hung tough down the stretch to pull out a 50-47 victory at Buffalo Grove.
“We played three good teams and we’re a good team,” Meadows senior point guard Brian Nelms said of Wheaton North, York and Niles North. “Those are good teams but they’re teams we need to be able to beat.
“Definitely playing teams like that with a couple of Division I kids helps for the start of conference play.”
Nelms had game-highs of 15 points and 6 assists and hit 3 of 4 free throws in the final 15 seconds for the Mustangs (2-3). Tyler Gaedele had 14 points and his 2 free throws with 1:21 left put them ahead to stay at 47-45.
Gaedele was 4-for-8 on 3-pointers but his 8 rebounds of Meadows’ 32-23 edge made a bigger impression.
“He really responded tonight,” Nelms said.
“We challenged the guys before the game that we needed to rebound and I thought we did a solid job,” said Meadows coach Kevin Katovich. “And I thought we did a nice job on (BG junior) Luke Potnick.”
Potnick had 9 points for the Bison (2-3) and hit his only 3 with 6:46 left to cut an 11-point deficit to 37-35. Meadows went up 43-37 on a 3 and a backdoor layup by Eric Lowe (8 points) off Nelms’ assists.
But even though Potnick fouled out at 3:31, BG rallied behind 6-foot-7 Sam Wacker, who scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, and Rich Zirngibl (9 points). Steve Soifer’s right-side drive tied it at 45-45 with 1:30 left after Meadows’ 19th turnover.
“We thought if we played solid defense we’d have a chance,” said BG coach Ryan O’Connor. “I was pleased with our defensive effort, especially in the second half.”
Lowe’s steal on a pass in the lane at 0:23 prevented a chance for BG to tie the game. Zirngibl’s rebound basket at 0:04 made it 49-47 but a desperation heave was after the buzzer after Nelms split 2 free throws with 1.4 seconds left.
“Any time you win on the road in the MSL it’s obviously huge and we’ll take it,” Katovich said.