Rockford East ends St. Charles North's Cinderella run

St. Charles North's coach finally turned into a pumpkin.

The North Stars' Cinderella run came to an end on the floor of Rock Valley College with a 51-46 defeat at the hands of Rockford East in a Class 4A sectional semifinal Tuesday.

But, typically, the North Stars wouldn't go down without a fight. The top-seeded E-Rabs (32-2) led 42-30 early in the fourth quarter, but the Stars reeled off 8 straight points, closing within 42-38 on a 3-pointer by Lucas Heflen. Rockford East never led by more than 8 points thereafter.

"We can't start the way we did," said Heflen, who led all scorers with 23 points. "We got down double digits and then we fought back a little bit, but it wasn't enough at the end."

In some ways, the game was a microcosm of the North Stars' season. They sometimes struggled against a brutal schedule but never stopped fighting.

"If you look at our schedule, there's no easy games," he said. "Every game for us was a big game. We competed every night. We struggled at first, but then we battled at the end. We never gave up."

St. Charles North led 7-4 before the E-Rabs scored 16 straight points to close the first period and open the second. The North Stars, though, opened the second half with a 12-2 run to get within 29-27. But they could never get over the hump.

A key sequence came late in the third quarter, as East answered with 8 straight points to go back up by double digits.

"Twelve points is nothing, especially if you play defense as well as we do," said SCN coach Tom Poulin. "When you're supposed to win, you start to get a little bit tight. I thought we let them finish the third quarter positively and that's on me. We've got to finish the third quarter better than that at this point in the season. I thought that gave them a little confidence going into the fourth. I think that was the difference."

Luke Scheffers added 9 points and 8 rebounds for St. Charles North.

Sha'Den Clanton led East's balanced scoring with 14 points. Sincere Parker and Chris Burnell scored 13 apiece for the NIC-10 champion E-Rabs, who will play for the sectional title against tonight's South Elgin-Harlem winner.

The North Stars didn't let the loss put a damper on their season.

"We played a very good basketball game against one of the best teams in the state, and we could not be more proud of our guys," Poulin said.