Palatine gets job done in crunch time again
You can feel the new confidence weaving its way through Palatine's boys basketball roster.
The Pirates have the mark of a contender. They make plays at crunch time. They hit big shots. They're focused.
It certainly looked that way Saturday night as they held off visiting Hersey in a Mid-Suburban League crossover 42-40.
In a literal seesaw game, the Pirates (3-2) got huge plays down the stretch from 6-foot-9 center Josh Rustman, whose basket inside on a nice feed from John Castellano provided the last points of the night with just over a minute to go.
He finished with a team-high 14 points and paired with 6-6 fellow senior Monroe Brooks to create a powerful force inside that enabled the Pirates to otherwise offset Hersey's size. They combined for 25 points and helped the Pirates out-rebound the Huskies 28-19.
Their key contribution was taking turns on Hersey's all-area standout Luke Fabrizius.
With help from 6-4 Ron Lampen, who fouled out, the 6-9 Fabrizius, one of the sweetest touches in the state, was limited to 9 points and took just 3 shots in the second half. However, he helped keep Hersey (3-3) close by blocking 7 shots and altering others.
"Coach told us to step it up at halftime," said Brooks, after Palatine let a virtual first half-long lead slip away. "We came out with a lot of energy."
And togetherness. He and Rustman aren't always on the court at the same time, but against Hersey's size, they were needed.
"We've been playing together since seventh grade," said Brooks of their familiarity with each other.
"We had to keep taking a look knowing where he was, helping out on him," said Rustman of Fabrizius.
Instead, 6-1 senior guard Griffin Dwyer stepped up and poured in 20 for Hersey, shooting them ahead at halftime with a buzzer-beating 3 and keeping it close from the perimeter in the second half.
Still, the Huskies had a chance to tie it as time was expiring, but Demitriy Velikov couldn't get a runner to fall and Fabrizius' tip attempt from a tough angle came up well short of climbing over the rim.
Hersey coach Steve Messer felt his club got a good look at the end but just couldn't get it to fall. He also liked his team's hustle and intensity after the previous evening's emotional East Division win over Rolling Meadows.
"The energy level was high, our intensity was good," he added.
"We're out of synch offensively," said Palatine coach Ed Molitor. "(But) our defense did a good job of getting us some points back. It came down to gut-check time and we got it done."