Larkin topples Romeoville for 8th victory
Though less than half the season has elapsed, the Larkin boys basketball team has already doubled its success rate, thanks to Wednesday’s 55-49 victory over Romeoville at the 37th annual Elgin Holiday Tournament.
The rebuilding Royals won only 4 games in the 2010-11 season while coach Deryn Carter allowed then-sophomore shooting guard Quantice Hunter and then-freshman point guard Derrick Streety to learn on the job alongside a bevy of junior forwards. The players gained needed experience last year, but the Royals remain a young team overall in 2011-12. Drew Jones, a promising 6-foot-4 sophomore forward, started against Romeoville, and freshman Daniel McFadden (6-4, 220 pounds) saw minutes off the bench.
Thanks to unselfish senior leaders like captain Ian Fluhler, 6-foot-5 forward Antonio Pipes and 6-5 reserve Blake Grantham and the addition of junior shooting guard Quentin Ruff, the mix works. The Royals go 10 players deep minimum with little if any drop-off from the first five to the second five. In fact, nine players scored at least 2 points and all nine grabbed at least 1 rebound against the Spartans.
It was victory No. 8 of this season for Larkin (8-3), which advances to the consolation championship game against Rockford East Thursday at 3:45 p.m.
“It’s great to have a chance to come back and win the next 3 games after losing the first game of the tournament (against Harlan),” said Streety, who led the Royals with 14 points.
“We dropped the first one, but we still wanted to play for something,” said Pipes, who had 5 points and 6 rebounds.
Larkin trailed 26-25 at halftime but outscored Romeoville 13-7 in the third quarter. Shaq Mosely and Streety each made 2 baskets in the period and Quantice Hunter (11 points) added a three-point play.
The Spartans pulled within a basket early in the final quarter, but Larkin scored 9 straight points over a stretch of 2:20 to take a 47-36 lead. The run was capped by 2 free throws by Hunter after Romeoville was whistled for a technical foul.
Hunter sank 8 of 10 free throws in the final period to keep the Spartans at bay, though his teammates connected on only 3 of 9 attempts in crunchtime. However, the Larkin defense forced Romeoville into 6 fourth-quarter turnovers.
“We left our missed free throws at the free-throw line, then we went and continued to defend,” Carter said. “We didn’t’ give up easy baskets, and we didn’t do not-intelligent things on the defensive end to compound our missed free throws.”
“We just tried to focus on keeping their team from getting on a run,” Streety said. “We were trying to keep the ball and their big men out of the paint.”
Senior Nate Washington led Romeoville (2-8) with 22 points while 6-5 forward Uchenna Akuba was held to 8 points.
Romeoville concludes tournament play Walther Lutheran for 11th place today at 12:45 p.m.