Mundelein 58, Stevenson 51

It's never happened to Dick Knar in 21 years of coaching.

Or in 14 years of playing.

The Mundelein boys basketball coach says in his 35 years around hoops he's never been a part of a team that's gotten shut out for an entire quarter -- as in no points scored. Zero, zilch, nada.

He probably could have never imagined that his current team, which was scoring more than 80 points per game at one point this season and never met a shot it didn't like, would provide that little footnote in his career.

On Friday night, the Mustangs took 6 shots and missed them all in the opening quarter of their North Suburban Conference Lake Division game against visiting Stevenson.

Yet, despite sitting on a big goose egg heading into the second quarter, Mundelein managed to stage a big enough rally to earn a 58-51 victory.

Thanks in part to a 15-point second quarter by forward Navjot Singh, the Mustangs took a 25-22 lead into the locker room and then turned up the defensive pressure as they built up an 11-point lead by the end of the third quarter.

"When Nav (Singh) scored our first basket, I was just like 'Thank God,' " Knar said. "I think he scored our first 6 points and then we kept stopping them and it was only 8-6 and then I was like, 'OK, now we're fine. It's like we started the game over again.' "

With the victory, Mundelein moves to 7-3 overall and 3-2 in the Lake Division. Stevenson, which had won three in a row, drops to 7-3 and 3-2 in the Lake as well.

"I think everyone was a little worried at first because we were playing a little slow," Singh said. "We just couldn't get easy shots to fall."

But it's not like Stevenson was shooting the lights out -- which probably saved Mundelein.

Stevenson had just 8 first-quarter points on 4-of-10 shooting.

"We were able to able to get them to do what we wanted (a slow-down pace), but we weren't able to build up a big enough lead. I mean, it wasn't like it was 22-0, so we really didn't feel very comfortable," Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose said. "They persevered and fought back and in the second quarter Singh took over the game. He made a huge difference."

Singh finished with a team-high 19 points, which included three 3-pointers. And that was in spite of rolling his ankle in the second quarter and fouling out with 2:38 in the game.

When Singh fouled out, the game was still tight.

Stevenson had fallen behind 41-30 at the end of the third quarter, but climbed back in to within 6 points on tough defense and free throws.

Forward Dylan Richter, who scored a game-high 21 points, hit 5-of-8 fourth quarter free throws for Stevenson. The Patriots also got 14 points from guard Kevin Stineman.

"We were coming back and had the momentum with us in the fourth quarter," said Richter, who sported a nasty black eye that he received last week in Stevenson's win over Warren. "We just couldn't get enough to make it happen."

Mundelein guard Andy Rochon helped put the game away by scoring 8 fourth-quarter points. He finished with 10 points despite suffered a nasty ankle sprain in the first quarter.

The Mustangs also got 10 points from sophomore guard Ben Brust and 11 points from guard Eric Pagsanjan, who hit some key shots in that pivotal second quarter.

"Nav was just so confident and doing his thing in the second quarter," Rochon said. "And that just went down the way through the whole team. Everyone else started getting their confidence back to shoot the ball."