Huntley nails 13 3-pointers in victory over Whips

It did not take Huntley long to establish the identity of this year's boys basketball team.

With the departure of seniors Corey Mader and Anthony Jaggers, both inside forces, the Red Raiders looked to the outside for scoring.

They found plenty of it.

Huntley made 13 3-pointers in its 67-47 opening-round victory over Hampshire in Sycamore's Leland G. Strombom Holiday Tournament. The 13 treys is one off the tournament record set by Sycamore in 1992.

"I said we were going to have to play a different way this year," Huntley coach Marty Manning said. "We give them the green light to knock it down."

Junior Zac Boster nailed 6 of the 3-pointers including 3 in the second quarter. Boster shot 50 percent (6 of 12) from long range and led the Red Raiders with 20 points.

Huntley (1-0) finished the game shooting 54.1 percent (13 of 24) from beyond the arc. Point guard Deigo Quintero (11 points, 3 assists) connected 3 times from long range and Dan Regan (11 points) hit a pair of bombs in the victory.

"We shot well last year and we shoot well in practice," Boster said. "We don't only want to take 3s."

But when Hampshire (0-1) took the ball inside against the smaller Huntley team, the Whip-Purs were much more dominant.

T.J. Burzak pounded in the final 9 points of the first half to cut a 28-15 deficit into a manageable 28-24. Burzak scored 9 of his 11 second-quarter points in the final 2:29 of the first half. The senior led all scorers with 22 points and added 11 rebounds.

"We were feeling pretty good," Burzak said of the Whips' first-half run. "Our goal was to get it down low. At times we couldn't get it down there."

The beginning of the second half was a perfect example of one of those times.

Huntley went on a 13-2 run to open the second half and never looked back. Jordan Nuekirch (11 points, 7 rebounds) and Tom Giordano each hit a pair of shots to put Huntley up 37-26 in the first 2 minutes, 35 seconds of the second half.

The Red Raiders finished with 21 points in the quarter as Boster hit a pair of 3-pointers.

"They had a 13-2 run at the beginning of the third quarter and that buried us," Hampshire coach Bob Barnett said. "We were outmatched."

Huntley finished the game with a 31-25 rebounding advantage, but owned a 13-7 edge on the offensive glass.