Payne gives Saxons a lift

MILWAUKEE -- It's hard to blame the Schaumburg boys basketball team for looking a little sluggish during the Saxons' 61-59 win over Glendale (Wis.) Nicolet at the Terry Porter Classic on Saturday afternoon.

Just a day earlier Schaumburg was edged 56-52 by rival Hoffman Estates, and Saturday's snowy bus ride to Milwaukee South Division High School took 2½ hours.

"We had a tough conference game last night," said Schaumburg coach Bob Williams. "And (when) you end up losing it's kind of tough to come back from that. And we had (a long) bus ride.

"We had lots of reasons but that doesn't hold any weight. Once you step on the floor you've got to play. I think we finally figured that out in the fourth quarter. We got some emotion going (and we) played a lot better."

The Saxons (4-2) escaped their trip north with a win, thanks to the late-game heroics of junior guard Cully Payne. The DePaul recruit calmly buried a 14-foot jumper in the lane with 30 seconds left to tie the score at 59-59.

Nicolet turned over the ball on its next possession with 9.3 seconds left. Payne then took the inbound pass, ran the length of the floor, and was fouled on a layup attempt with 2.1 seconds left.

He drained both free throws and Nicolet failed to get another shot off before the final horn sounded.

"I was going to win it or lose it for us," said Payne. "(The pressure of making the free throws) didn't bother me."

The Knights (1-2) trailed 28-26 at halftime, but put together a 12-3 run at the end of the third quarter. The outburst culminated in a runner in the lane by Torrance Smith that gave Nicolet a 44-38 lead.

Schaumburg chipped away at the lead in the fourth quarter. A 3-point play on an acrobatic layup by junior guard Perrish Bell, who finished with 14 points, pulled the Saxons within 52-51 with 3:44 left.

A free throw by Brandon Bolger, who also scored 14 points, with 1:47 left tied the game at 57-57. Nicolet held a 59-57 edge after a pair of free throws by Smith with 57.8 remaining.

"(We want to) get the heck out of Wisconsin before they take the win back," said Williams. "It was like we had a monkey on our back from last night.

"They were kind of down. And in the fourth quarter that lifted. I think we learned something about our team enthusiasm, so I'm excited about that."

Wheeling 62, Fremd 42: From start to finish, Wheeling made efforts on both sides of the ball to control the game, and that's just what they did.

The Wildcats' defense forced Fremd to take a lot of outside shots and offensively dominated in the paint in a 62-42 Mid-Suburban League crossover win at Fremd on Saturday.

With the victory, Wheeling (2-3, 1-1) bounced back from a 1-point loss to Prospect on Friday.

"I'm very proud of our guys because we had a heartbreaking loss (Friday) night," said Wheeling coach Lou Wool. "We could have felt sorry for ourselves, but instead we came out with a businesslike approach and got the win."

Leading the way for the Wildcats was 6-foot-4 senior Alex Chery, who poured in a game-high 17 points to follow up his 16-point performance from Friday.

Despite matching up size-wise, the Vikings (1-4, 0-2) were unable to slow Chery around the basket. In the first quarter Chery scored at will, pounding his way inside to 10 points. His rebounding on offense helped Wheeling get 22 second-chance points and his defensive work contained Fremd.

"In practice we worked hard on moving the ball around so we could get some open shots," said Chery. "All of the guys distributed the ball really well and that helped our offense a lot."

Wheeling also had valuable contributions from juniors James Kurtz (14 points) and Michael Barton (8 points).

Senior guard Chris McClellan finished with 13 points, 9 of which came in the second half. McClellan's streak of consecutive made free throws ended at 36 in the second quarter but he was 6-for-6 in the fourth quarter.

Trailing 16-8 after the first quarter, Fremd's offense came alive before the half. The Vikings outscored Wheeling in the second quarter and trailed by 5 at the break.

Fremd's leading scorer was Christopher Klimek, a 6-4 sophomore, with 11 points. Juniors Will Reising, Alex Weis, and Daniel Bruno all had 6 points apiece.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Wheeling sealed the win on a fastbreak dunk by Chery, which put the Wildcats up by 12.

"I was trying for that dunk all night I finally got it at the right time," said Chery. "We hope that this win starts a streak, especially with us having Prospect on Thursday."

-- Todd Mrowice

Carmel 64, Antioch 40: Don't tell Antioch coach Mike Skinner that Carmel forward Jack Baucus is just two weeks removed from football and still trying to find his basketball legs.

"He looked like an all-American against us," Skinner said. "He was pretty good."

Baucus was a career night kind of good.

He pumped in a career- and game-high 20 points on 10-of-12 shooting and also pulled down 7 rebounds to lead Carmel (2-5) to a 64-40 nonconference victory on a cold and icy Saturday night in Antioch (0-5).

"I knew (Carmel) had some shooters, but I didn't know about that big kid," Antioch guard Michael Powell said of Baucus. "He had the game of his life. He played like a man and killed us down low."

Carmel also did some damage out on the perimeter. Guards David Venegoni and Jordan Sivertsen added 16 and 11 points, respectively.

-- Patricia Babcock McGraw

Moline-Barrington, ppd.:ŒThe nonconference game at Barrington was postponed because of weather conditions. No reschdule date has been announced yet.