Stephens’ 32 leads St. Charles E. past Streamwood

St. Charles East’s basketball team isn’t shy about shooting 3-pointers.

When the outside shots don’t fall, the Saints sometimes struggle to score.

But when they start dropping, the Saints can be mighty dangerous.

After hitting just 3-of-17 shots from beyond the arc while falling behind Streamwood 26-23 at halftime, the Saints (3-2, 1-0) connected on 7 of their 14 second-half 3-point attempts to rally past the Sabres (2-4, 0-1) 62-47 in Upstate Eight Conference River Division action Friday night in St. Charles.

Junior forward Kendall Stephens drained five of his six 3-pointers in the second half on his way to a season-high 32 points. His back-to-back 3-pointers to open the second half helped the Saints turn a 27-23 deficit into a 29-27 advantage.

“Obviously you saw in the first half it looked bad when we don’t make them because they get long bounces that lead to fast breaks,” Stephens said of his team’s long-range shooting. “But we’re confident because we’ve got good shooters.

“Once we got a feel for it as the game went on, they started to fall and it started opening up lanes.”

Stephens canned 5 consecutive shots, including two more 3-pointers, during the Saints’ 23-14 fourth-quarter surge that turned a tight game into a double-digit victory.

“It’s just having the confidence that the work you put in will pay off,” said Stephens.

St. Charles East finally solved the Sabres’ zone defense in the fourth quarter when it made 10 of 13 field-goal attempts.

“That was because we were taking much better shots,” said Saints coach Patrick Woods. “It was a good second half. I wish it would’ve been (good) in the first half, too.”

Brandon Larkin-Guilfoyle (14 points), Joel Lightbourne (11), and Kyle Strong (12) combined for 24 of the Sabres’ 26 first-half points, as the visitors led by as many as 7 at one point midway through the second quarter.

“I thought we had pretty much total control of the game,” said Sabres coach Tim Jones, “and then we had some foul-ups on our zone assignments and some unforced turnovers by guys that I don’t expect to turn the ball over.

“We were our own worst enemy.”

Johnny Hondlik had 8 points and a game-high 11 rebounds, while Charlie Fisher and Dominic Adduci each added 6 for the Saints.

“If we make a couple better decisions in the first half, it’s a different game,” said Woods. “Once again, we were settling for 3-pointers. Don’t get me wrong, I love 3-pointers. But we’ve just got to learn when to take them and when not to take them. We did not go inside enough.

“When they’re going in, it’s contagious and when they’re not going in, it’s also contagious,” added Woods. “What we have to understand is when they’re not going in, go inside. Again, it comes down to decision making.”

Jones understood that stopping Stephens was going to be a monumental challenge for his injury-riddled team.

“You hope to limit what he does but then you hope that everybody else doesn’t score, too,” said the Streamwood coach. “That’s what you end up doing.”