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Boys Basketball: Bison rally comes up short against MSL foe Hersey
Updated: January 14, 2012 10:59PM
It wasn’t pretty at times, but Hersey’s boys basketball team found a way to get the job done in its Mid-Suburban East clash with Buffalo Grove.
Despite leading the entire first half, the Huskies (7-9 overall, 3-2 MSL East) squandered their advantage in the third quarter – then needed a strong fourth quarter push to come away with a 62-47 win over the visiting Bison on Saturday.
Hersey moved a game above .500 in conference play, but the most telling thing about this one may have been the stat sheet. The Huskies shot just 33 percent (20-for-60) from the field, yet four of their five starters scored in double figures.
Vuk Vukovic (game-high 16 points), Sean Reszotko (12 points), Joey Mailloux (10 points) and Stefan Vucicevic (10 points, 10 rebounds) were among the Huskies’ starters that produced 57 of the team’s 62 points. Hersey’s other starter, Kevin Kozil, added nine.
“This is what happens when we play unselfish basketball,” Vucicevic said. “It’s all about teamwork, and we had a lot of great second and third efforts on the glass tonight.”
Those second and third efforts revealed the night’s most telling statistic, which took place in the paint. Hersey out-rebounded Buffalo Grove 40-28, and had a 19-9 edge on the offensive glass. It not only allowed the Huskies to take eight more shots than the Bison, but also let Hersey consistently get to the free throw line, where they shot 19-for-29.
“I wish I knew why (we were so successful rebounding tonight) to be honest,” Hersey coach Steve Messer said. “We spend a lot of time working on rebounding in practice, and it seemed like our guys were just really aggressive chasing down missed shots out there. It was good to see, but we have to do that consistently.”
Buffalo Grove (5-11, 1-4) fell behind by 10 just two minutes into the game, 16-6, then spent the next two quarters trying to chip away at the lead. They kept Hersey’s advantage to single digits throughout the rest of the first, second and third quarters, and with 3:08 left in the third, Bison senior guard Alex Fritz (eight points) banked a driving layup in. It gave Buffalo Grove its first lead of the night, 40-38.
It was all downhill after that for the Bison. They led, 42-41, to open the fourth quarter, but an 11-2 run by Hersey during the first three minutes of the period gave the Huskies a 52-44 edge they refused to yield. The Huskies used the remaining five minutes to reel off another run – this time 10-3 – to finish the game.
Compounding Buffalo Grove’s woes, Hersey opened the fourth quarter in the bonus, and was in double bonus for the final 5:13. They cashed in, going 11-for-16 from the foul line during the final eight minutes. The Huskies also held Buffalo Grove to just five points in the fourth quarter – which included an incredibly stingy 2-for-17 mark from the field.
Junior guard Luke Potnick led Buffalo Grove with 16 points, but couldn’t find his mark late, going 0-for-10 from the field in the fourth. Conversely, he was 5-for-8 during the first three quarters, and a big reason why the Bison were able to climb back into the game.
“I think we just went cold in the fourth,” Buffalo Grove coach Ryan O’Connor said. “We needed some guys to step up and make some shots late in the game, and we that didn’t happen tonight.
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