Bartlett 55, Crystal Lake South 49

If, say, this whole coaching thing doesn't work out, first-year Bartlett boys basketball coach Jim Wolfsmith could make a nice living as a caddy.

After his Hawks roared back from a 33-22 halftime deficit to win 55-49 at Crystal Lake South Saturday night on the strength of 19 second-half points from point guard Marc Little, Wolfsmith used golf terminology to explain why the Gators couldn't cover center Kamil Janton, forward Cory Hrynyk, guard Luke Labedzki and Little simultaneously.

"You pull a club out of the bag, you pull a club out of the bag, you know, the goal is sooner or later someone's going to find it," Wolfsmith said of Bartlett's top four scoring weapons. "I don't think I can count but maybe a handful of games where we didn't have a club in the bag to go to war with.

"I'll take Marc going to war everyday if they want to stop the other three."

Little was left open against the Gators' 1-2-2 zone defense in the third quarter, so Bartlett's posts smartly kicked the ball out to him on the perimeter.

That allowed Little to play the role of Bartlett's Big Bertha, and he drove the lane the way a top golfer drives fairways -- with accuracy. He shot 7-of-8 from the field after halftime, a statistic that included three 3-pointers.

"We got in the middle of the zone, and the posts kicked it back out," Little said. "That's what we worked on today in practice."

CL South (10-9) shot 14 of 25 from the field in the first half and still led 37-27 with 3:52 left in the third quarter before Little completed a three-point play that ignited a 16-2 run for Bartlett (14-6), which used a 1-2-2 half-court press to force 5 third-quarter turnovers by the Gators

However, CL South didn't go down without a fight.

A pair of Mike Brockway 3-pointers kept the score tight enough for Wesley Evans to knot the game at 47 with an inside bucket over Janton (6-foot-9) with 1:43 to play.

But Little answered with his final 3-pointer with 1:27 to play and Labedzki (18 points) sank a pair of bonus free throws with 1:08 to play to stake the Hawks to a 52-47 lead.

The Gators missed a bonus opportunity from the free-throw line with 43 seconds to play and whiffed on their final three shot attempts in dropping their fourth straight game.

"We were 1 rebound, 1 shot away against a very good Bartlett team," CL South coach Dan DeBruycker said. "We gave ourselves a chance to win. Their heads are down and it hurts, but we took a step forward today as a team."

Brockway led the Gators with 13 points and 4 rebounds, Wesley Evans contributed 9 points and 8 rebounds and Steve Rogers added 10 points off the bench.