Hersey gets it together

The game was at a point where it could be considered everyone for himself time.

But Hersey senior Tom Sutrinaitis decided to take a pass on adding to what was already a big personal night and tried to make a pass to one of his teammates.

That togetherness typified how the Huskies boys basketball team put together its best performance of the season Saturday night. They handed visiting cross-town rival St. Viator its first loss 81-62 before the usual spirited cross-town rivalry crowd at Ken Carter Gymnasium in Arlington Heights.

"We've been doing it in practice but we're finally getting it in games," said Hersey senior guard Connor Miklasz, who had 18 points, 8 assists and three 3-pointers.

"This weekend I feel we basically ran teams off the court with our athleticism," said the 6-foot-5 Sutrinaitis, who matched his career high of 21 points on 8-for-9 shooting and had 15 rebounds. "We had a bunch of fastbreak points.

"We're getting it together and once it gets going, we can be pretty hard to stop."

It showed in the third quarter as Hersey (5-4) tore away from a 35-33 lead at halftime to its third straight win.

Miklasz, Sutrinaitis, Kevin Kozil (10 points) and Sean Reszotko (11 points, 10 rebounds) all had 5 points apiece.

Trevor Haas (9 points), Justin Jobski (9 rebounds) and Stefan Vucicevic (7 points) also scored in a 26-point outburst that put Hersey up 61-46 going into the fourth quarter.

"(Viator) is a very good team and it's a very good win," said Hersey coach Steve Messer. "It was a great team performance. I loved how we shared the ball and it was fun to watch us play."

In just about every area for Hersey as it joined Mid-Suburban East rivals Prospect and Buffalo Grove with 80-point games this weekend. Viator (7-1) gave up its highest point total since an 86-77 loss to Prospect on Jan. 26, 2002.

Hersey shot 47.5 percent from the field (28-for-59), made 21 of 27 free throws, committed only 11 turnovers through three quarters and had a 48-28 rebound advantage.

"We base everything on defense and aggressiveness and we showed both tonight," said Sutrinaitis, who already had a double-double at halftime with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Viator shot just 31 percent from the field (21-for-70) and was 8-for-38 behind the 3-point arc. Chris Myjak had a team-high 17 points and 7 rebounds.

D.J. Morris had 16 points with four 3s but he missed 12 of 13 second-half shots against Miklasz to finish 6-for-23 from the field. Kevin Walsh added 12 points on 5-for-14 shooting.

"They didn't shoot well," Messer said, "but I'd like to think we had something to do with it."

Viator had allowed only 47 points a game in its best start since it won its first 12 games in 2000-01.

"They beat us in every aspect of the game and offensively they just took it to us," said Viator coach Joe Majkowski. "Tonight was just hustle. They were getting after the boards a lot more than our guys were.

"We had a tough night shooting and I don't know if it affected how we played the rest of the game, but you have to do all the other things we didn't do."

So Viator will try to regroup for its Wheeling Hardwood Classic opener with Streamwood on Dec. 27. Hersey will try to expand on what it's been doing when it opens Pekin Holiday Tournament play that same day against the hosts.

"Our transition game was good but our half-court game still needs to improve," Messer said. "We always had that (bond) but the thing was decisions. We made a lot of poor decisions early in the season and got ourselves in bad spots."

That wasn't the case for the Huskies on Saturday night.

Conant 47, Fenwick 44: Conant continued its impressive early-season start Saturday night with a 47-44 nonconference boys basketball victory over Fenwick in Oak Park.

Dylan Bartuch scored a game-high 17 points and hit three 3-pointers for the Mid-Suburban West-leading Cougars (8-1), whose only loss was by a point to St. Viator. Avery Osby scored a career-high 12 points and London Dokubo added 8 points.

The Cougars allowed only 3 third-quarter points to turn a 20-20 tie into a 31-23 lead. They also overcame 9-for-19 free-throw shooting.

BG 65, Lindblom 51: After being tied at the half in the nonconference game in Chicago, Buffalo Grove pulled away late to earn a victory Saturday.

The score was tied 28-28 before the third quarter, when the Bison (7-2) outscored Lindblom 23-18. BG finished up with a 14-5 scoring edge in the fourth quarter.

Senior guard Nick Prus and junior forward Sam Wacker led BG in scoring with 17 points apiece. Wacker also had a team-best 11 rebounds, and sophomore guard Luke Potnick had 14 points and a team-high 6 assists.

Prospect 63, Lake Zurich 44: Terry Redding scored a career-high 19 points and had 11 rebounds as Prospect (5-3) broke open a close nonconference game in the second half at Lake Zurich.

Mike LaTulip scored 16 points and had 5 of his 6 assists in the second half. Matt Loebbaka added 12 points for the Knights, who extended a 22-18 halftime lead to 40-29 after three quarters.

CL South 48, Barrington 47: A 3-pointer at the buzzer sent defending tournament champion Barrington (6-5) to a tough defeat in the opening game of the Jacobs Holiday Tournament in Algonquin.

John Schneider scored a season-high 18 points for the defending tournament champion Broncos. Tyler Weathered added 11 points and Brad Zaumseil scored 9 points.

Barrington plays St. Charles North at 3 p.m. Monday in a rematch of last year's title game.

Mundelein 87, Elk Grove 63: Sean Gordon scored 16 points and Devin Neill and John Lorenz added 14 points apiece for Elk Grove (3-6) in the Jacobs Holiday Tournament loss.

Mundelein led 19-9 after a quarter and 30-19 at halftime. Robert Knar scored 33 points and Evansville-bound Ryan Sawvell added 16 points.