Elgin 65, Larkin 37

Larkin's Blue Crew student section showed up in force on a cold Wednesday night to support its boys basketball team, hoping the Royals could pull off a shocker against rival Elgin.

Confident fans of the cross-town Maroons packed the opposite side of Larkin's cozy west-side gym.

The top-notch Larkin band rocked out on Ozzy's "Crazy Train," the play-by-play announcers from WRMN-AM radio were stationed at their usual perch and alumni from both schools dropped in to enjoy the pageantry that accompanies the city's high school hoops rivalry.

But not every game in the Elgin city series goes down as a classic. This one sure didn't -- unless you're an Elgin Maroons fan.

Elgin won its seventh game in eight outings by jumping to a 12-0 lead en route to a 65-37 thumping of Larkin, dropping the Royals to 1-18 this season.

Elgin senior guard Armani Williams, playing in his eighth (and perhaps final) Elgin-Larkin game, scored a game-high 27 points on the strength of seven 3-pointers.

In Elgin's last three victories the red-hot Williams has scored 83 points, including 21 3-pointers.

"We played real strong," Williams said. "I mean, I'm happy about what I've done, but I was way happier about what my team did. They really played strong… Basically, our team's playing good, which makes me play well. When they're playing well, I'm playing well."

The win was the fifth straight for Elgin (13-8) over Larkin and gave the Maroons a sweep of the season series.

"That's five in a row since our sophomore year, so I'm pretty happy," smiling Elgin senior D'Angelo Stewart said in the victorious locker room after the game.

Stewart opened the scoring with an inside basket, Williams followed with his first 3-pointer and Stewart made it 7-0 with a putback of an offensive rebound.

Timeout Larkin.

Williams subsequently sank a pair of free throws, then he connected for his second 3-pointer to make it 12-0 just over five minutes into the game while Larkin was missing its first 6 shot attempts.

Timeout No. 2, Larkin.

"Any team's tough when they're hitting all their shots at the beginning," Larkin senior Cam Kinley said. "They got out to a huge lead and that's hard to come back from, especially when we weren't hitting shots. Basically, it was all downhill from there."

Elgin led 17-6 after one quarter and 33-11 at halftime behind 18 first-half points from Williams.

Elgin's defense was crisp all night. As a result the Royals shot just 24.5 percent from the floor (13 of 53).

"They're a real good defensive team and they came out with a lot of intensity," Larkin junior Jeff Saurbaugh said. "Once we got down our intensity fell with it. We couldn't get anything going and nothing was falling."

Elgin's defense has been the key to their recent surge, according to coach Mike Sitter.

"We spend 75 percent of our time in practice on defense and it showed in the last three games," Sitter said. "Our offense is so much better when we play defense."

Seniors Tyler Compere and Nick Bee led the Royals with 6 points apiece.