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Seniors lead Hoffman Estates past Maine East

Hoffman Estates' seniors weren't just ready to say goodbye to their boys basketball season.

Led by seniors Nate Fisher, Levent Sertesen and Alan Harris the Hawks lived on to play another day with a scrappy 51-40 win over host Maine East in Park Ridge Monday night in the play-in game of the Class 4A Maine East regional.

Hoffman Estates (9-18), which is seeded 14th in the Elk Grove sectional, comes right back Tuesday night to play third-seeded Evanston in the regional semifinals.

"We have had our ups and downs," said Fisher, who had 16 points and 12 rebounds. "Going into the playoffs, we knew we had to play together for another and not be so selfish."

Sertesen, who finished with 10 points thanks in part to converting all six of his free throws, said that his team was able to overcome a slow start.

"It felt great because it was a team win," Sertesen said. At the beginning it was a little slow. But we picked up the tempo and got them to play our game."

The Hawks were able to stay in front thanks to the play of Harris, who had 7 of his 9 points in the first quarter.

"The team was able to get me the ball and I was able to facilitate like I usually do," Harris said. "It could not be done without our defense."

That defense forced 16 Maine East turnovers. The Hawks were also able to get out on the Blue Demon 3-point shooters and limited them to 5-of-24 from outside the arc.

The Hawks led 26-19 at the break and Hoffman coach Luke Yanule wanted more movement on the offensive end.

"The one thing in the first half, we had just two reversals," Yanule said. "In the second half we started to do that. The more you reverse the ball the defense doesn't rotate well, you can take the inside drive. We also got in the bonus in the third quarter and that was the key."

It took a timeout in the third quarter after Maine East (5-27) closed to 28-26 on a basket by Shray Patel to remind his team of the strategy.

The message got through as the Hawks exploded.

They went on a 14-3 run with Fisher scoring six of those points including a huge dunk that excited the small, but loud crowd as Hoffman pulled away with a 42-29 lead with 5:17 to play.

"We played well enough to win," Yanule said. "We are worried about our turnovers (23). Not taking care of the ball will get us in trouble against Evanston."

Maine East was led by Alex George, who had 16 points and 6 rebounds, and Jason Dedios who had 11 points.

"The kids did play, hard, they always do," Maine East coach Dave Genis said.

"We didn't shoot the ball particularly well. If it wasn't for Alex, it might have been out of hand in the first half. We needed to play consistently with more urgency than we did. It kind has been the story to our season."

Elk Grove 53, Von Steuben 51 (OT): Freshman Josh Mottley hit the game-winning 3-pointer with two seconds left in overtime as Elk Grove advanced at the Class 4A Loyola regional. The Grens will face the top-seeded host Ramblers in Tuesday's semifinals.

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