St. Charles North, Burlington Central each find positives
The scoreboard worked fine Tuesday night at St. Charles North, and when the clock hit 0:00 there was a winner and loser like there always is - though both teams left the gymnasium in a win-win mood.
The North Stars' 58-54 victory offered something for everyone. St. Charles North sent its seniors out with a win in their final home game, while Burlington Central got the experience it wanted against a big lineup heading into the postseason.
St. Charles North (16-10) did it without leading scorer junior forward Josh Mikes, who was resting his back.
Coach Tom Poulin went with an all-senior starting lineup. Adam Bernthal and Scott Hedges joined regulars David Johnson, Beau Blakely and Ryan Brown. Foreign exchange student Christian Illunga, the team's sixth senior, entered midway though the first quarter.
The group fell behind 6-0 in the first minute on a pair of 3-pointers by Sam Klein, then settled down and built a 19-16 lead after the first quarter.
"Our No. 1 goal on the board was to send the seniors off with a win," Poulin said. "We felt confident we'd be able to pull out a win so I wanted to make sure those seniors got playing time and started and finished the game."
Burlington Central (11-12) never trailed by more than 11 points. Jared Maxness and Ray Honeycut swished 3s in the final 30 seconds of the game to trim the final gap to 4.
The Rockets, who drained 11 3-pointers in their win Friday, connected on eight more against the North Stars.
"There's a reason they are on there (the schedule) at this time of year," Rockets coach Brett Porto said. "That's exactly what we wanted to play a team like that, good size and some good guard play. We played hard the whole time. I wish we would have played a little bit smarter."
The Rockets never regained the lead after their 6-0 start. They pulled within 29-28 late in the second quarter only to watch Johnson bury a long 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to make it 32-28.
The North Stars extended their lead to 44-36 after three quarters. Good passing early in the fourth quarter with Blakely finding Brown, Johnson assisting Kyle Nelson and Blakely again hitting Brown made it 50-42, then Johnson nailed his fourth 3-pointer for the North Stars' biggest lead of the game.
The 6-foot-7 Brown and 6-6 sophomore Nelson both grabbed 9 rebounds, leading St. Charles North's 40-26 advantage on the glass.
"We were just a little rusty in the beginning," said Johnson, who added the key to playing well without Mikes is sharing the basketball.
"Especially in the second half we finally got inside and finally started beating them on the glass and that's what we were trying to do the whole time."
Klein led the Rockets with 15 points before fouling out. Honeycut and Shane Larkin both added 8.
Burlington Central could see more size at the Class 3A Kaneland regional against big men like Dave Dudzinski and Jordan Threloff.
"The one thing I'm glad we battled for 32 minutes," Porto said. "That's one of the things we usually don't see is two or three big guys."
Johnson topped all scorers with 21 points and also had 8 rebounds and 5 steals. Brown scored 16 points, Nelson 11 and Blakeley 8 plus 5 assists.
Poulin said Mikes could have gone Tuesday and will return Friday against Neuqua Valley, the North Stars' final regular season game in a scheduling quirk that has them playing only 2 games in 25 days leading up to their regional semifinal against Bartlett March 3.
"He's a little sore," Poulin said. "We felt like this would be better for him to give him another day or two off without getting shoved around.
"I thought we looked like a team that had 10 days off. We need to get some work done before Friday and before the regional."