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Boys Basketball: Waubonsie Valley coasts past South Elgin
Jared Brownridge and his Waubonsie Valley teammates on Thursday very quickly put Tuesday’s loss to Neuqua Valley in the rear view mirror, and just as quickly did the same to South Elgin.
There was no hangover effect from a tough loss as Brownridge shredded South Elgin for 26 points and the Warriors shot 69 percent from the field in a 59-44 Upstate Eight Valley victory.
“You always worry about, after an emotional loss, how your team is going to respond,” Warriors coach Steve Weemer said. “We had an emotional loss Tuesday and I thought they responded fantastic.”
The Warriors (14-6, 7-2) stayed within a game of first in the loss column with the easy victory by hitting 22-of-32 from the field for the game and limiting South Elgin to 29 percent from the floor through the first three quarters (10-of-35).
“We came out here and just got after them,” Brownridge said. “It started on defense and the offense comes along and you get rolling and that’s what happened.”
Brownridge, in particular, had it rolling with 8-of-9 from the floor. He followed up two driving short shots in the first quarter with eight second-quarter points that included two three-pointers.
“I was feeling it,” Brownridge said. “It’s not going to happen every day.
“I had to take it to the hole first, started driving, and it opened up my outside shots.”
Waubonsie Valley outscored South Elgin 17-7 in the second quarter for a 30-19 halftime lead, and 10 of the Warriors’ 13 first-half buckets came from inside 5 feet; most were layups.
“I thought we shared the basketball really well tonight,” Weemer said.
“I thought we had some good looks. We haven’t been shooting the ball particularly well, so I thought we shot better tonight, and the defense was good tonight and overall, our energy was good.”
South Elgin (9-9, 2-6) had hung around and pulled within 48-40 after Jake Maestranzi (team-high 16 points) nailed a three-pointer with 3:27 to play.
The Storm forced a backcourt turnover and had momentum, but Waubonsie Valley came out of a timeout with a Bryan Jefferson layup that started an 11-2 run which iced the game. Jefferson finished with 11 points.
“Defense — it comes down to defense,” Storm coach Chaz Taft said. “When you can’t stop anybody, it’s going to be hard to win the rest of our games.”
The Storm was playing for the first time in 15 days, but Taft discounted that as a factor.
They missed 11 of their first 12 three-point attempts — a huge factor for a team that depends on the trey.
“Tonight we didn’t shoot the ball well,” Taft said. “We let that go to our defense. We then came down the floor and didn’t guard real well.
“It was like two negatives, and then we just moped and sulked and put our heads down. That’s not going to lead to a good thing.”
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