On the court, C-G's Tometich twins very different

They are twin brothers born 20 minutes apart, but their on-court personas are anything but similar.

Cary-Grove basketball player Mark Tometich, a senior guard, has always been an outside shooter, a sniper waiting on the wing to accept the kick-out pass and drain a momentum-turning 3-pointer.

Paul Tometich is an aggressive player, one willing to take a shot to the ribs and continue his drive to the basket undaunted, a trait that has gotten him to the free throw line 90 times this season.

Paul is also quite adept at shooting the ball from the perimeter, not to mention just about everything else. He leads the Trojans in virtually every offensive category.

"Paul has just been an all-around horse," said Cary-Grove fourth-year coach Ralph Schuetzle. "He's our leading rebounder (5.4), our leading scorer (16.4), leading 3-point shooter (41 percent), leading free-throw shooter (74 percent), leading 2-point shooter (58 percent), one of our leaders in assists (1.9) and he's our best low post player.

"He's just our best player."

The Tometich twins not only lead the Trojans (11-9, 2-1 Fox Valley (Valley) in offense, they rank among the area's top scorers. Paul is seventh this week while Mark is 11th at 14.2 ppg.

Mark still does most of his damage from the outside, as evidenced by his 39 3-pointers in 97 attempts. But improvements he made to his game over the summer, coupled with his willingness to bear down defensively in recent weeks, have begun paying dividends on the court.

Basically, Mark Tometich has become harder to contain and, therefore, so have the Trojans.

"Mark has matured a great deal in the last two weeks," said Schuetzle. "He has put more of an emphasis on his shot selection and defense. He's getting (back on defense), he's getting some stops and he's playing hard.

"One of the opposing coaches the other night said, '(Mark) is a different player. He's under control, balanced, not taking those little fade-away baseline jumpers.'

"There's just been something different about his demeanor the past couple of weeks. He's playing the way we want him to play."

Mark led the Trojans with 20 points last Friday in a 45-31 victory over McHenry-- a total that included four 3-point baskets and four 2-point buckets.

"When we were freshmen and sophomores all Mark did was shoot threes," Paul said. "So this summer he developed his game, taking the ball to the basket and making mid-range pull-up shots.

"His strength is still shooting threes, but he can take a couple of dribbles and shoot or pump fake and go to the basket. He hasn't shown it a lot, but he's doing it more these days and it's working."

Mark knew his all-around game needed a push last summer.

"Last year I was just shooting threes and if my shots weren't falling I wouldn't play a good game," he said. "This year I had to round my game a lot more. I practiced my dribbling a lot this summer and tried to get in the weight room to get stronger so I could bang a little bit with the big boys. I just want to battle as much as I can."

Mark's recent growth as a player has mirrored that of his team.

The Trojans have played a run-and-gun style of basketball most of the season -- a style that sometimes resulted in ill-advised 3-point shots off the fast break even if no teammates were in position to rebound.

But when the Trojans weren't getting open shots, they often forced the issue and the offense would break down into "an every-man-for-himself mentality," according to Schuetzle.

These days Cary-Grove has become more polished in its swing offense, a scheme modeled after Bo Ryan's attack at the University of Wisconsin.

The key to that offense, like most, is using good ball movement to get open shots.

Lately, the Trojans have grown more patient. They reverse the ball more often. They wait for the other team to make a mistake. They find the weak link, perhaps a cut a defender doesn't defend well.

They are emphasizing getting the ball inside first to forwards Ben Jacquier and Dan Fallon instead of shooting from the perimeter first. "We were the exact opposite early in the year," Schuetzle said. "We were going outside-in instead of inside-out."

The junior class is actually more adept at this offense than the seniors because they ran it last year on the sophomore team at Schuetzle's request. He held off installing it at the varsity level for a year because the 2006-07 Trojans were laden with post talents like Alex Orchoswski, Kyle Loch and Dave Oswald and Schuetzle felt a different offense favored that particular group.

Thus, this year's seniors have been playing catch-up. Until now.

Led by the Tometiches, high-energy point guard Pete Pellizari, Fallon and Jacquier inside and key contributors like guards Matt McCord, Alex Jordan and Matt Nelsen and forward Dan Bartz, the Trojans have won two straight.

The mini winning streak signaled the end of a funk during which the Trojans lost 4 straight games by a frustrating total of 4 points.

"If just one thing would have gone differently here or there, it would have turned out different," Paul said. "It's not like we were getting killed in the games we lost."

Though their preseason goal of winning 20 games is a longshot, the Trojans believe they can be a major factor in the Valley Division race, particularly if they can win tonight at Crystal Lake South (10-9, 0-3) and Tuesday at home against Woodstock (7-11, 2-1).

That would give the Trojans a four-game winning streak and a head of steam heading into the rematch against Jacobs, a team Cary-Grove scared in Algonquin two weeks ago before dropping a 59-54 decision.

"We still have confidence that we can win a bunch of games from here on out," Paul Tometich said. "Even if we don't win 20 games, we'll still be pretty satisfied if we keep playing the way we are now."