Boys Basketball: Andy Mazurczak leads Ridgewood past Illiana Christian

Updated: December 16, 2011 11:31PM

Before the season began, Ridgewood senior guard Andy Mazurczak was considered one of the top players in the Metro Suburban Conference.

He showed a large Illiana Christian crowd exactly why on Friday night in Lansing as he scored a career-high 32 points to lead the Rebels to a 71-54 victory over the Vikings. He also had seven steals, seven rebounds and five assists.

“I didn’t come out aggressive and coach (Chris Mroz) told me I had to pick my game up,” Mazurczak said. “We have to get the ball up and down the court because of our size and that’s what we started doing in the second half. I hit a couple of threes and that opened things up and was able to get to the basket.”

Ridgewood (5-2, 2-0) went into halftime in a 24-24 tie with Illiana (4-4, 0-2). The Rebels tried to pick up the tempo in the third quarter and Illiana hung with them until midway through the quarter when Ridgewood went on a 15-1 run to end the quarter with a 47-35 lead. Pete Mroz scored nine of his 19 points in the third quarter, Mazurczak chipped in with seven and Anthony Mroz added six.

“Pete, Anthony and I are supposed to be the scorers for this team so we had to try and pick things up,” Mazurczak said. “We were a little disappointed at the half with just 24 points but our defense kept us in the game. We wanted to come out in the second half and play up tempo to pull away from them.”

Illiana, which turned the ball over 25 times, managed to cut the lead to seven with 2:40 left at 59-52 but Ridgewood closed the victory out with an 11-2 run. Junior Elijah Lares finished with 19 points for the Vikings, who suffered their fourth straight loss.

“He’s one of the best guards in the city,” Ridgewood coach Chris Mroz said. “He’s always come up big for us in big games. We needed him to come up big for us tonight because of the way we played in the first half. I was kind of hard on them at the half but they responded in the second half.”

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