Geneva 73, W. Chicago 41
The abiding image of Monday's Geneva-West Chicago boys basketball regional-opening contest isn't of West Chicago turning over the ball -- which the Wildcat did on 26 occasions.
No, the image etched in stone is what happened next, which all too often was Geneva converting those turnover into points.
Geneva built a pair of large first-half leads by making the Wildcats pay for their mistakes. The Vikings put the game away in the same fashion in the third quarter.
By the end Geneva had a 73-41 victory in the Class 4A Naperville North regional quarterfinal.
The victory moves the No. 12 seed Vikings (17-11) into Wednesday's second round contest with No. 5 Naperville Central.
"We just wanted to make sure that we could keep (West Chicago) at arm's length and to sustain that," said Geneva coach Tim Pease. "We've shown we've been able to do that, but at the same time, to let teams right back in."
The Vikings jumped to a 13-2 lead in the opening quarter and never trailed in the game.
"We wanted to play fast and we wanted to get easy shots," Geneva forward Max Cary said. "We didn't want to rely on the jumper early on. We got good looks and got layups early on, which helped our confidence the rest of the game."
Cary and teammate Alex Turnowchyk scored 14 points apiece to lead all scorers.
After No. 21 seed West Chicago (1-25) closed to 15-11 the Vikings went on another long scoring run, this time an 11-0 blitz that included 5 West Chicago turnovers in three minutes.
"I thought that once we got it to 15-11, we'd handled some of their pressure and then we'd move forward," said West Chicago coach Kevin Gimre. "But right after that it went from 15-11 to 19-11 to 23-11. We had a tough time handling the pressure."
The final flourish came at the start of the second half, when Geneva outscored West Chicago 11-3 and built a 45-18 margin.
Rob Tauscher didn't enter the game until the third quarter but ended with 13 points, just behind Cary and Turnowchyk for game-high honors.
"I got my chance, which was nice," Tauscher said. "That's how our offense is. A lot of my points tonight came from passes from my teammates. I think I only created one shot on my own."
Jon Reyes scored 12 points to pace West Chicago. Clark Hudmon added 9 points for the Wildcats.
"Hopefully we see that we need to do a better job defensively in order to stay in games," Gimre said. "We can't keep giving up 60-70 points in a game and hope to win games, because we're not going to outscore you."