Payne-full end for Saxons

Clinging to a 1-point lead with a minute left wouldn't seem to be a time for flinging up 3-pointers.

But Schaumburg junior Cully Payne had the ball in his hands for a split second before he rose up and fired from the right corner Friday night at Palatine.

"Actually, I was happy," said Pirates coach Ed Molitor.

Until Payne's shot swished through the net with 57 seconds left, which gave Schaumburg an even happier 4-point lead as it went on to a physical 48-42 Mid-Suburban West victory.

"That was definitely a momentum-killer," said Palatine senior Ron Lampen, who came off the bench to score a team-high 12 points. "It changes your perspective on the game. It hurt."

A Payne-filled ending was just the prescription the Saxons (7-2, 2-1) needed to rally from 19-10 and 27-20 deficits.

The DePaul-bound guard scored 13 of his game-high 19 points in the last 10:21.

"In the fourth quarter I kind of stepped it up," Payne said of hitting his final 4 shots from the field to finish 7-for-14. "For us to pull it out I had to look to score. From looking to score it got a lot of guys open."

Which is how the Saxons went ahead to stay in the fourth as 6-foot-4 Josh Spandiary, who came off the bench to battle inside against 6-6 Monroe Brooks (10 points, 7 rebounds), hit Dan Slowik for a tying jumper.

Then Payne drove the left side and fed Brandon Bolger (13 points) in the right corner for a 3 and a 35-32 lead with 6:22 to play.

"He took the game over," Molitor said of Payne. "He's a nice player. He handles the ball, involves his teammates and hits open jump shots."

But it was Bolger, after a rocky third quarter, who sparked the Saxons with some sticky man-to-man defense to force Palatine (3-5, 1-2) into the 19th of its 21 turnovers on its first possession of the fourth quarter.

"We needed to come out and set the tempo on defense the way we know how," Bolger said.

"It turned the whole game around," Payne said. "From Brandon playing great 'D' and Perrish (Bell), we all stepped up and picked up our defense."

Palatine shot 37.2 percent (16-for-43) from the field and was only 1-for-13 on 3s. But John Castellano scored off one of the misses to cut the deficit to 41-40 at 1:08.

Payne quickly answered.

"I've always been comfortable if we run our offense and take a shot that's a good shot," said Saxons coach Bob Williams. "That's a good shot for him. I felt comfortable with him taking it."

So did Payne, whose dad Kent's teams thrived on 3s in his head coaching career.

"Don't shoot it," Cully said with a smile of what most coaches would say. "These guys trust me to shoot shots like that, and I've been shooting them since sixth grade.

"There was no hesitation. I didn't even think at all."