McHenry beats Huntley for seventh consecutive victory
McHenry broke its habit of getting off to a slow start, then rallying furiously in the second half for a victory.
The Warriors got off to one of their best starts of the season and stayed that way for 3 quarters.
Huntley made its own frenetic comeback late, making things a little tight, but McHenry held on for a 55-51 Fox Valley Conference boys basketball victory Wednesday night, its seventh consecutive win.
“(Huntley) made some plays, you get down like that and your inhibition of the game, they did a great job pressuring us and we made enough plays to win,” Warriors coach Corky Card said. “We have had several games (where we came back). Anytime you beat Huntley at Huntley, that’s good stuff.”
McHenry (14-4, 4-3 FVC) jumped out to an 18-8 lead in the first quarter and widened that to 45-29 after three quarters. The Warriors shot 63.2% (24 of 38) from the field for the game.
“Our past few games we haven’t started off really strong,” Warriors guard Marko Visnjevac said. “We adopted a new warmup to get us more hyped up and more together. We came and really communicated well. That was our best start to a game all year.”
Forward Hayden Stone hit a 3-pointer 10 seconds into the game and added a dunk later in the first quarter.
“These past few wins made us all really confident,” Stone said. “We were shooting well and guys are getting to the rim. Adam (Anwar) developing has been a big help. Overall picking each other up and working off each other’s game has been a confidence boost for us.”
McHenry had everything running smoothly early in the fourth quarter as it built a 49-29 lead. But the Red Raiders (11-7, 4-3) picked up their defensive pressure and forced 10 turnovers in the fourth quarter.
“We were just scrapping,” Red Raiders coach Collin Kalamatas said. “We have some dudes who are athletes and we were able to generate some turnovers. That was kind of playing from desperation.
“We tried some different stuff in halfcourt and they shot the ball really well and made some difficult, challenged shots that, any other night, could go in and out. Marko was pretty special today.”
Dylan Hurckes led McHenry with 16 points on 7 of 10 shooting; Visnjevac scored 15 and Stone grabbed seven rebounds and blocked three shots.
Bryce Walker led Huntley with 18 points, 11 coming in the fourth quarter. Omare Segarra scored 17 for the Raiders.
Huntley started an 11-0 run with 5:15 remaining in the fourth to cut the lead to 49-40.
Walker’s layup after a steal made it 52-46 with 49 seconds remaining, but Hurckes hit a free throw and Caleb Jett rebounded a miss on his second shot and scored to make it 55-46.
Card was pleased with the way the Warriors started offensively, as they hit 13 of 19 in the first half.
“We shared the ball,” Card said. “All the kids were aggressive early, we had good spacing and we were pretty connected, just a good job of playing together.”