Boys Basketball: Glenbard South shuts down Elmwood Park

It might have been scrappy defense or it might have been cold shooting, and Glenbard South point guard Jon Berrospi landed firmly on one side of the issue.

“Defense is what we do,” Berrospi said. “That’s how we win games. We’ve been going hard in practice and now it’s starting to pay off.”

The Raiders held visiting Elmwood Park to a single point during an eight-minute span in the second half, in a 15-1 scoring run that carried them to a 49-41 win in a Metro Suburban Conference game on Friday.

Offensive momentum swings both ways kept the game hanging in the balance before the Raiders clinched their third consecutive win.

“After starting the season at 0-3 we’ll take them any way we can get them,” Raiders coach Wade Hardtke said. “We played well defensively during that stretch and at the start of the game, and when we play hard we do some good things. We just need to be more consistent.”

Glenbard South (3-3, 2-0) ran out to a 15-0 lead that featured a trio of three-pointers from Berrospi, Dusko Despot and Dominique Cisneros-Watson. For Elmwood Park (4-3, 0-2), guard Anthony Santiago took the ball to the basket twice to cut the Raiders’ lead to 15-4 after a quarter of play.

The Tigers earned a 12-10 scoring edge in the second quarter and cut the Raiders’ lead to 27-23 in the third on a fast-break layup from Santiago. That’s when the Raiders elevated their defensive intensity in building a 42-24 lead, midway through the final quarter of play.

“We went cold,” Elmwood Park coach Mike Wasielowski said. “We haven’t gone 0-for-8 from the floor in any game this year, and that’s what hurt us.”

Santiago finished with a game-high 17 points while teammate Julian Molina had 13 points and eight rebounds for the Tigers. Berrospi had 12 points for the Raiders, who also got 10 points and six rebounds from Despot.

“We had that early lead but then we let up,” Berrospi said. “They have some knock-down shooters and they were hitting their shots. We kept our intensity up high in our last two games but tonight their zone kind of slowed us down.”

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