Boys basketball: Cary-Grove clinches FVC title outright by beating McHenry
Adam McCloud’s message to his Cary-Grove boys basketball team after it clinched a share of the Fox Valley Conference championship was that the job’s not done.
After the Trojans beat host McHenry 75-53 Tuesday night to capture the conference title outright, the celebrating wasn’t done.
“I think we’re going to go back to the locker room [at Cary-Grove] and maybe pour some water on Coach [McCloud],” senior guard Dylan Dumele said after scoring a season-high 24 points in helping the Trojans improve to 26-4 and 16-1 in the FVC.
C-G had no plans of sharing the conference crown and showed it against McHenry (19-11, 10-7), which finished atop the FVC with Crystal Lake South last season.
C-G scored the final six points of the first quarter, after the score was tied 13-all, and never looked back. Led by Dumele, Adam Bauer, AJ Berndt and Jackson Berndt off the bench, the hot-shooting Trojans then proceeded to go on a 23-5 run to build a 36-18 lead with two minutes left before halftime.
They maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the way.
“Tonight was a huge game,” Dumele said. “We came in pumped, and we got it done.”
The Trojans cut down the nets on their home court and received their FVC-championship trophy Friday night after beating Crystal Lake Central 75-57. The win gave C-G its first conference title since 2020, but it was back to business at practice Saturday.
“The kids didn’t want to share [the FVC title]. Nor should they want to share it,” McCloud said. “They’ve earned the right to be conference champs. ... The guys got their legs back Saturday, and we had a great day of prep.”
Bauer added 17 points, including a 3-pointer and a two-handed dunk, and six rebounds, as the Trojans beat McHenry for the second time in four weeks. His brothers Brady (seven points) and Evan (two points, three offensive rebounds, blocked shot) also contributed.
AJ Berndt, coming off a career-high 36 points against Crystal Lake Central, had 10 points. Jackson Berndt (eight points, five rebounds) scored on putbacks to beat the first-quarter and halftime buzzers.
It was the most points given up this season by McHenry, which allowed 10 offensive rebounds.
“They run their offense really well,” Adam Anwar, who led the Warriors with 21 points, said of the Trojans. “They’re really simple with their actions. They screen, cut, flash to the ball. You can tell that they all work on their outside shooting. They hit a ton of shots today, and they got a ton of offensive rebounds too. That’s what killed us. That was an energy shift for them.”
Dumele scored 12 points in each half and shot 9 of 14 from the floor, including 4 of 9 from beyond the arc. The lefty also was 2 of 2 from the line.
“I’ve been struggling a little bit, at least from 3, so I was keeping it loose and having fun,” said Dumele, whose previous high-point game this season was 22 against Larkin the day after Christmas at Jacobs’ Hinkle Holiday Classic. “It was a big game. I was jacked up, and my teammates got me the ball.”
Nathan Ottaway had 15 points and 10 rebounds for McHenry, but the Warriors couldn’t slow down the visitors, who made 29 of 53 shots (55%), including eight 3-pointers.
C-G starting guard Brandon Freund missed his third game in a row with a lower-leg injury. But the Trojans’ depth, which also includes pesky guard Conner Strike, helped prevent McHenry from ever getting close after the first quarter.
“We know McHenry can do a lot of things,” McCloud said. “They got one of the best players [Anwar] in the area, and he’s hard to guard. We changed our defenses a lot, kept them guessing, but they didn’t have an answer for us offensively. We had a lot of guys making plays.”
While C-G will host Prairie Ridge in its regular-season finale Friday, McHenry will wrap up the regular season the same night at home against Crystal Lake South.
“We had a lot of mistakes [against Cary-Grove],” Anwar said. “But the beauty of the end of the season is that regionals are coming up quick, so our focus has to be as high as possible.”