Buffalo Grove's Mulligan clutch in crunch time

Buffalo Grove coach Ryan O'Connor knows how valuable senior guard Kevin Mulligan is to his team.

Especially when it comes to crunch time.

"Kevin was the silver lining tonight," said O'Connor. "He was able to take the ball to the basket, and we would have been in trouble without that."

Mulligan led BG with 11 points Friday night - and with points hard to come by for both teams, his driving layup and 3-point play down the stretch was clutch in a 44-37 MSL East victory over visiting Elk Grove.

Mike Cornely added 10 points for BG, while 6-foot-3 guard Nick Prus scored 7 points and grabbed 9 rebounds.

"This was an ugly win," said O'Connor. "We played good defense for the most part, and usually that leads to lifting the lid off the basket - but we didn't get to the latter part tonight."

Elk Grove, which had lately suffered poor starts to games, buoyed coach Anthony Furman's spirits by jumping to an early 8-3 lead.

"That was a small victory for us," said Furman. "We've been down 10-to-1 at the start in recent games against Prospect and Schaumburg. It seemed like either team tonight could have stepped up and taken control of the game in the first quarter, but neither of us did."

The Bison (10-5, 3-1) took the advantage back midway through the second quarter and opened up a lead as big as 8 points at one point in the second half.

Bt the Grens fought back.

A rebound and layup by Grens senior guard Zack Husak (8 points) brought EG to within 31-30 with three minutes left.

The Grenadiers (4-11, 1-3) trailed by 2 with 2:15 remaining when Mulligan weaved his way through traffic to the basket, sank the layup, was fouled and made the free throw to give the Bison some breathing room.

Late free throws by BG's Jeff Zabrin and Dan Recht helped seal the win.

"Down the stretch, we need to learn how to do better things on offense," said Furman. "We held a good team to 15 points under their average, but you're not going to win many games when your averaging between 37 and 44 points a game."

Senior guard Brian Battaglia led the Grens with 11 points, while 6-foot-6 senior center Scott Siwicki was a force with 6 points, 10 rebounds and 6 blocked shots.

"He (Siwicki) is playing well," said Furman. "He's starting to alter the way teams play in the paint against us."