Elgin survives Larkin in OT
No. 1 Elgin survived rival Larkin’s best shot Wednesday. Barely.
Visiting Larkin led by a basket with under a minute to play, but Elgin junior Arie Williams tied the game by driving for an off-balance bank shot, and the Maroons scored the first 10 points in overtime to pull out a 59-52 Upstate Eight River victory in front of a big, energized crowd at Chesbrough Field House.
“The Elgin-Larkin game is always a big game, and you have to play with poise,” said Williams, the game’s leading scorer with 21 points. “I think at the end of the game that’s what we were able to do.”
Williams’ late heroics, which included the first basket in overtime and 7-of-8 free-throw shooting in the extra session, capped an emotional night for the Maroons in general and captain Kory Brown in particular.
First, Brown reached a milestone. He scored the 1,000th point of his career early in the first quarter when Williams made a steal and fed the 6-foot-4 senior on the break for a layup. Brown is the 17th player in Elgin High School history to reach 1,000 points and is now tied for 16th place on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1960 graduate George Clark. Each has 1,012 points.
“It feels good, 1,000 points,” Brown said. “It’s exciting to join the ranks of the other guys who’ve done it. It was a rough game to get it, but I got it and I’m happy about it.”
The rough part for Brown came in the second quarter. As he ran up court with the ball, Brown became entangled with Larkin’s Rashaudd Daniels at midcourt and went down in pain when Daniels inadvertently fell on Brown’s ankle. In pain, Elgin’s leader initially pounded his fist on the court repeatedly, but he was eventually able to walk off under his own power and returned to play in the second half.
“When I got up and put a little pressure on it, it was actually feeling a little better,” Brown said. “My trainer did a great job with me.”
Larkin stayed within 30-27 at halftime, thanks largely to 11 first-half points from 6-4 sophomore forward Drew Jones, who took advantage of a smaller defender initially. Larkin shot only 11 of 31 in the first half but won the rebounding battle 18-12.
“There were so many breakdowns I can’t list them,” Sitter said of Elgin’s defense. “That’s their worst defensive performance, especially in the first half. I mean, all (Larkin) did was screen it out from the block up to the elbow and roll the post down, and we acted like we’d never seen it before. Yet, St. Charles North runs it, St. Charles East runs it and Stevenson ran it against us. We stopped it against all them, so I don’t know why we couldn’t stop it today.”
Things changed in the second half. Brown was assigned to cover Jones and held him scoreless in the second half on only 2 attempts. However, Larkin found other ways to attack. They forced 6 Elgin turnovers in the third quarter and outscored the Maroons 11-7.
The last of those 6 turnovers was a steal by Larkin’s Shaquille Mosley, who then drained a pull-up 3-pointer with 3 seconds left to send the determined Royals to the fourth quarter with a 38-37 lead.
“I didn’t know how much how time was left, but by the sound of the crowd it was winding down and I needed to pull up,” Mosley said.
The Royals (8-6, 1-3) took a 3-point lead, their biggest of the game, when Antonio Pipes opened the fourth quarter with a low-post bucket, but the rivals battled through 4 ties until Daniels gave the Royals their 48-46 lead on a low-post leaner with 1:15 left in regulation.
Williams missed the front end of the bonus with 58 seconds left, but he tied the game with 44 seconds left on his off-balance bank shot.
Elgin regained possession when Cortez Scott blocked Derrick Streety’s shot at the other end and saved the rebound to a teammate, but Williams missed a long 2-point attempt with 3.1 seconds left and the Gerardo Mojica was called for traveling when he fell to the floor with the offensive rebound.
Larkin triggered into Daniels at midcourt against full-court pressure, but his 32-footer to win the game at the regulation buzzer fell just short and to the right of the rim, sending the game to overtime tied 48-48.
The extra period was almost anticlimactic. Williams scored an early bucket to put Elgin. After a Larkin turnover, Williams found Mojica all alone under the net with a bounce pass for an unobstructed layup and a 4-point lead. That took some of the punch out of the Royals. So did the turnover that followed on Larkin’s next possession.
“I think we lost a little luster because we were down 2 possessions and they had the ball,” Larkin coach Deryn Carter said. “What can you do? It was a 1-possession basketball game. We just didn’t make enough plays.”
Elgin three-year starting guard Dennis Moore suffered an injury to his right hand early in the second half and did not return. Moore broke his left hand playing football.
Larkin played much better than it did in a blowout loss against visiting Geneva last Friday.
“I told the guys if we play that hard and play that well, we won’t lose a lot of games,” Carter said. “But we can’t just play that hard and that well because it’s Elgin. Elgin is the best team around, No. 1 in the Daily Herald for a reason. And they’re a very good basketball team. They showed it today.”