Dundee-Crown hangs on for win
Last year, Burlington Central lost 4 games on buzzer-beaters or in overtime.
The Rockets are looking to buck the trend after Dundee-Crown held on to take a 67-65 victory in semifinal action of Sycamore's 48th Annual Leland G. Strombom boys basketball tournament Friday.
Dundee-Crown now faces Huntley in the championship game at 7:30 p.m. The Chargers won the tournament two seasons ago, while the Red Raiders are the defending champs. Central gets Chicago Hope in the 6 p.m. third-place game.
The Rockets (1-1) had D-C (2-0) within a basket five times in the final 5 minutes, but every time the Chargers needed a score they got it.
“When you get that close, you look back and every one of those hurts,” Rockets' coach Brett Porto said. “The games comes down to rebounding. They scored at least 20 points off second-chance opportunities.”
Sam Klein (15 points) brought Central back to within 59-57 with a 3-pointer with 2:17 left to play, but the Chargers got a basket from Bruce Dantzler on the next trip down the floor to go back up 61-57.
With Central forced to foul, D-C went up by 65-59 at the free-throw line before Jared Moxness (12 points) hit a 3-pointer from the corner to bring the Rockets within 65-62 with 29 seconds left.
Brandon Rodriguez split a set of free throws to put the Chargers back up 66-62 with 12 seconds remaining.
Tim Sullivan then hit a 3-pointer for the Rockets with 2 seconds left to come within 66-65. The Rockets then fouled Dylan Kissack with 1 second left. Kissack made the first and then intentionally missed the second to prevent a last-second shot from Central.
Kissack led 4 Dundee-Crown players in double figures with 16 points and shot 6 of 8 from the floor.
“Dylan came out and gave us a big lift tonight,” Chargers' coach Lance Huber said.
Central led for the majority of the first half after taking a 4-3 lead with 5:52 left in the first quarter. The Chargers fought back and eventually tied the game at 34 when Kissack scored 4 points in the final 20 seconds of the first half.
The Chargers then came out with 3-pointers from Ryan Smith (12 points) and Nathan Kirchhoff (10 points) to go up 40-34 in the first minute of the second half. Central did not lead again.
Central jumped out to a 22-15 lead at the end of the first quarter by forcing 8 Chargers' turnovers in the first quarter. Central used the transition buckets to go 8 of the 13 from the floor in the opening period. Dundee-Crown would turn the ball over just 13 times in the rest of the game and Central shot 36.4 percent (14 of 34) in the next 3 quarters.
Jamel Kimbrough finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Chargers, with Ray Hunnicutt adding 15 points for Central.