Elter rallies Palatine past Lake Zurich with big 3rd quarter
Palatine’s Tommy Elter refused to make this the last game for the Elter family.
Tommy is last of four Elter boys who have played basketball at Palatine for the last 10 seasons. Elter’s play in the third quarter rallied the Pirates from six points down at halftime to a 53-39 win over Lake Zurich in the semifinals of the Class 4A Elgin sectional Wednesday.
Palatine (26-8), which broke their school record for wins which they set last year, will meet Stevenson in Friday’s sectional final. The two teams have yet to meet this season.
Elter’s play in the third quarter was spectacular as he pushed his team to victory.
Not known for his scoring, Elter tallied seven points to go with his six rebounds, five on the offensive end. He also had four steals as he helped Palatine to a 10-point lead after three quarters.
“We have said all year that Tommy can completely impact a game without taking a shot,” Palatine coach Eric Millstone said. “And he did that in the defensive.end of the court but he also scored tonight. He is our Energizer Bunny. He just makes plays at both ends.”
Elter finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds.
“Going home is not an option right now,” Elter said. “We want to keep on going. It went back to the (MSL championship) game against Rolling Meadows. We were down five and we got our offense going. Older brothers teach you how to compete in whatever you are doing.”
Lake Zurich (22-9) built a 24-18 lead at the half thanks to the outside shooting of Kevin Kretschmar (19 points) and the inside play of Anton Strelnikov (10 points). But the Bears missed out on a golden opportunity for an even bigger lead.
Palatine’s Connor May, the Pirates’ leading scorer, had to head to the bench with 4:22 left in the first half. At the time, Lake Zurich led 18-14 and the Bears were only able to increase their lead by two points.
That was the opening May and Elter needed. Elter forced a quick pair of turnovers and Palatine quickly found its footing.
Tony Balanganayi’s layup ignited an 8-0 run with Elter hitting a driving layup and May accounting for two others to make 26-24.
“I was ready to get back in there,” said May, who finished with 20 points, 7 rebounds and three blocks.
“Our team did a great job. When one person is out, we all come together and play as one. We had stops defensively and manufactured shots on the offensive end.”
After Lake Zurich pulled even for the final time on a basket by Strelnikov, Palatine slowly began to pull away. May’s three-pointer put the Pirates up for good at 29-26. That would begin a 9-2 run as the Pirates led 35-28 with 3:22 left in the third quarter. During that 4-1/2 minute span, Palatine scored nearly as many points (17) as the Pirates had scored during the entire 16-minute first half.
Lake Zurich got as close as 35-32 on rare four-point play by Kretschmar. Palatine then responded by closing out the quarter on a 7-0 run. It was punctuated by an amazing three-point shot by Darren Dick from the corner when the ball hit on top of the front of the rim, danced around for a brief moment, and then fell through to make it 42-32
“That was a good third quarter on both ends of the floor,” Millstone said. “It kind of resembled our Rolling Meadows game where we got to half where we felt comfortable going back out going into the third. And all we talked about at halftime was toughness. And how the game honors toughness.”
The only reason Palatine didn’t pull away until the last two minutes was the poor free shooting in the final quarter. They went 11-of-22 in the period and 15-of-31 for the game.
“They executed their stuff in the second half and we just didn’t do our job as well,” said Lake Zurich coach Terry Coughlin, whose team won their first regional since 2018.
“Then the second half just got away from us. I think the sum of our parts was really good this year. It is hard when you have a group that works this had. But we have five of our first eight players back next year.”