Prospect pulls away from Buffalo Grove
It’s tough to say that when Prospect’s Mike LaTulip scores 27 points that you played good defense on him.
“I thought we kept him in check with our different defenses,” said Buffalo Grove coach Ryan O’Connor. “LaTulip is just a great player.”
While the Knights won their Mid-Suburban East contest 68-53 in Buffalo Grove, Prospect’s surrounding cast deserved accolades.
With the Knights (9-5, 3-1) leading 43-38 with 5:58 left in the game, they went on a 13-2 run to expand the lead to 56-40 with 3:50 left.
Devin O’Hara (10 points, 6 rebounds), one of Prospect’s “bench mob” started things with 2 free throws. LaTulip hit a 3-pointer and Kevin Somogyi (13 points, 5 rebounds) hit for 2 free throws.
A basket by Sam Wacker, who scored 14 for the Bison to go with 7 rebounds, interrupted the run.
Somogyi hit for a basket underneath and then hit 1 of 2 free throws. LaTulip, who scored 14 points in the fourth quarter, hit another 3 pointer and the Bison (5-10, 1-3) could not recover.
“Buffalo Grove played us very physical and took away a lot of our early offense,” said Knights coach John Camardella. “It’s the most physical defense we’ve faced on the perimeter all year.
“They threw zone, box-and-one, man-to-man defense. It took us out of our flow until Mike (LaTulip) hit a couple of shots.”
The teams were tied at 14-14 after a quarter and the Knights forged a 32-24 lead at halftime.
“Going into the fourth quarter we’re only six down,” said O’Connor. “But, the last five minutes we did a little too much one-on-one. While we played good defense it hurt us on the boards where they took advantage.”
The Knights out-rebounded the Bison 30-23.
“We did well on him (LaTulip) until the last five minutes of the game,” said Bison guard Luke Potnick who scored 18 points. Rich Zirngibl added 10 points for the Bison.
“A lot of players like Brad (Reibel, 15 points, 7 rebounds) and Devin really stepped up for us tonight,” said LaTulip. “The scoring balance we had tonight has helped us win six of the last seven games.
“Down the stretch we want to win these games. That means protecting the ball and being patient.”
Somogyi, who has come back from a few ankle injuries, feels he’s getting better.
“I’ve been working a lot to get the ankle stronger,” said Somogyi. “Tonight was a big conference game to win. We have a lot of wonderful players on this team and we create good things for each other.”