Boys Basketball: York too much for St Charles North

Updated: February 18, 2012 9:44PM

A Saturday night nonconference battle of teams that turned their fortunes around later in the season was won by the team that turned around its fortunes at halftime of the game.

York, which has now won 15 of its last 16, made a big halftime adjustment to stop St. Charles North’s 6-foot-7 center Kyle Nelson, and hot-shooting Dukes guard David Cohn did the rest in a 61-56 victory over the Stars.

“Early this year we weren’t a team,” said York guard David Cohn, who scored a game-high 32 points. “I hate to say it.

“Then something clicked and it all came together. Everybody figured out their roles — and now we’re on a roll.”

The roll started slowly Saturday when Nelson got inside repeatedly to score 16 first-half points and lead the Stars to a 21-17 lead.

Then it turned completely in the third quarter. York outscored the Stars (13-14), who have clinched a share of the Upstate Eight River championship, 16-7 and kept right on scoring until it was clock-tilling time. In the meantime, Nelson scored only four second-half points against Frank Toohy and Justin Kurash, all of them in the fourth quarter.

“It wasn’t pretty at halftime with that,” York coach Tom Kleinschmidt said. “We were talking about fronting and helping back side and we weren’t doing either. Then we started fronting him three-quarters and had help to the side and put him into a lot of pick-and-roll situations that might have worked on his legs a little bit.”

The defense addressed, Cohn went to work on the offensive end. He struck for 27 of his 32 points in the second half, including a huge three-pointer for a 35-28 lead ending the third quarter, then back-to-back three-pointers starting the fourth quarter to blow it out to a 41-28 lead.

“I’m spoiled,” Kleinschmidt said. “I wish he was a freshman and I could have him a couple more years. His biggest problem is being too amped up before games — he’s such a competitor he takes bad ones then.

“Tonight he had some stupid fouls early, but when he slows down and takes a breath, he’s a bad boy — he can shoot that thing.”

The Dukes (20-8) hit 10-of-18 from the field the second half and also did an solid effort holding down Loyola-bound Quinten Payne. He went scoreless the first half, although he didn’t play the first five minutes as the Stars celebrated senior night with Nelson and four other seniors starting. Payne wound up with 11 points.

“I’m disappointed with the decision-making offensively,” North Stars coach Tom Poulin said. “They did a better job collapsing on (Nelson) and discouraging us and we didn’t do a good enough job even beginning to execute certain sets to get him the ball.”

Alec Goetz caught fire with four fourth-quarter three-pointers to keep North from getting blown out, but the Stars got no closer than five before Cohn and Jake Rzeszuto (15 points) put the game away at the line.

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