Short-handed Schaumburg not short-changed

Short-handed Schaumburg had its share of potential reasons available if it came up short in Friday night’s Mid-Suburban West boys basketball finale at Conant.

The Saxons were missing starting point guard Kyle Bolger with an injured right shoulder and backup Thomas Byrne with an injured knee. They had already wrapped up the West title and berth in Wednesday’s MSL title game against visiting Rolling Meadows.

But the Saxons didn’t sell themselves short and won 20 games for the 10th time with a 43-29 victory at Conant.

“We do what we do and that’s play defense and execute on offense,” said senior scoring leader Christian Spandiary after he scored half of his game-high 22 points in a 15-0 run that put Schaumburg (20-5, 9-1) up 31-13.

“The staple of our program is defense,” said Schaumburg senior guard Joey Faleni. “We can play defense no matter who we have.”

Faleni was a defensive force on the ball as Conant (12-12, 6-4) committed 19 turnovers, shot just 25.5 percent from the field (12-for-47) and was 1-for-18 from 3-point range.

“I thought our kids played very, very well (defensively),” said Conant coach Tom McCormack. “Offensively we didn’t play very well and Schaumburg had a lot to do with that. I don’t think our shot selection was as good as theirs and we had a lot of early shots and forced shots.”

Schaumburg shot 32.4 percent (12-for-37) but Spandiary hit 5 consecutive shots and three of his four 3s after Conant got within 13-11 on a 3 by Sean Bourke (7 points).

Schaumburg coach Matt Walsh is optimistic Bolger will return but uncertain when from a shoulder injury he suffered last week. Faleni did more of the ballhandling and junior Cole Reyes started and had 6 points and 4 rebounds.

Mike Mallett had 6 points and 3 assists and Jimmy Lundquist hit a 3 in the decisive run. Justin Hill, Bobby Greene, Carlos Sarasti and Kevin Curnow made the most of extended playing time as the Saxons won for the 11th time in 12 games.

“I thought we played well together,” Walsh said, “and we had a couple of players who aren’t used to playing a lot of minutes who stepped in and played really well.”