Glenbrook North hands Hampshire loss at DeKalb

Unfortunately for Hampshire's boys basketball team, Saturday's game in DeKalb's 88th Annual Chuck Dayton Invitational proved to be one of those proverbial lid on the basket second halves.

First quarter and halftime leads vanished as Glenbrook North rolled to a 45-30 victory. Worse yet for the Whip-Purs, the season records reflected the tale of two halves as Hampshire dipped to 2-7 while the victors improved to 7-2 heading into a Monday 4:45 p.m. quarterfinal against Marmion (54-52 winner over Sterling).

Hampshire heads to the consolation half of the 16-school tourney billed as the state's oldest continuous hoops tourney. The Whip-Purs have a 9 a.m. Monday meeting with Sterling.

"We had at least six real good looks to start the third quarter." Hampshire coach Ben Whitehouse said before shrugging.

After starting the second quarter with a Bryan Diete jumper, the Whip-Purs had an 8-point lead and were also ahead 16-9 with 3:37 left before halftime. But that's when the Spartans went on a 9-0 run to claim their first lead only to have Hampshire's Deon Garcia beat the buzzer with a top of the key 3-pointer for a 19-18 advantage.

But with 2 turnovers and 8 missed shots, Glenbrook North scored 12 points before Luke Tuttle hit a pair of three throws. Hampshire's only field goal for the third quarter came with 8-tenths of a second left on a Nathan Gomez lay-in to make it a 32-23 deficit.

"We just couldn't seem to buy a basket and they jammed us up defensively throughout the game putting a body on us at all times. Slowly but surely they wore us down," Whitehouse added. "Guess the time off worked against us because we didn't get our legs under us for four quarters to answer when they went on runs. We attacked the glass throughout and had some good looks, so it wasn't for a lack of effort."

But the contrast from hitting 31.8 percent (7-of-22) in the first half versus shooting 14.3 percent (3-of-21) for the last two quarters was too much to overcome.

"On the plus side we were up at half against a very good team and in many ways outplayed them, but only for the first half," Tuttle said. "When things go that way in a game you just have to continue to fight for good looks and if they still don't drop, then switch to attacking the rim to get free throws, but that didn't happen either."

Tuttle finished with a game-high 13 points with Garcia next in line with 7. Danny Duchaj led Hampshire with 9 rebounds.

"I know we'll come back strong on Monday, but the two weeks off clearly left us a little rusty," Garcia said. "When the shots don't fall for one of us, it's up to everyone to pick up their teammates and battle harder because it is a team game."

While Glenbrook North hit an identical 31.8 percent (7-of-22) for the opening half, the Spartans hit 41.7 percent (10-of-24) after halftime with Michael Stachnik registering a team-best 12 points and game-high 11 rebounds. Luke Amen came off the bench to add 10 points while James Karis had 8 with game highs of 3 assists and 2 steals.