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Boys Basketball: Dundee-Crown knocks off Central in opener
| Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media |
Updated: November 22, 2011 10:10PM
While Dundee-Crown never exactly buried Burlington Central on Tuesday, the Chargers didn’t give the Rockets much of a chance to make things interesting.
In the season opener for both teams, Dundee-Crown seized control early in the second quarter and rolled to a 64-50 victory at the Sycamore Thanksgiving Tournament.
It was a rather sloppy affair as both teams got a number of players involved, but the Chargers simply got better contributions up and down the roster. Junior Brandon Rodriguez scored a game-high 15 points to go with four steals, senior Kyle Bernhard hit four 3-pointers and tallied 14 points and junior Dylan Kissack added 12 points and six rebounds.
“Everybody has a role and we’ve accepted it,” Bernhard said. “We’ve got ballhandlers and shooters and the guys who don’t score don’t care. I think that’s the key. When you’re winning, it doesn’t matter who scores the points.”
Dundee-Crown got baskets from Thomas McNally and Cordero Parson in the final 37 seconds of the first quarter to open a 14-12 lead it wouldn’t relinquish the rest of the night.
The baskets marked the start of a 16-4 run for the Chargers, and when Bruce Dantzler nailed a 3-pointer with 4:43 left in the second quarter Dundee-Crown had a commanding 26-16 lead. The Rockets didn’t exactly go quietly, but they never came any closer than seven points the rest of the way.
“In the first half we were kind of just trying to get a feel for each other and getting all the jitters out,” Kissack said. “Once we got the lead we didn’t look back.”
Junior Ryan Ritchie had 14 points and senior Ray Hunnicutt added 13 to pace a young Burlington Central squad. The Rockets had 14 players see action but struggled to find a rhythm as they committed 25 turnovers and made only 19-of-49 (38.8 percent) from the field.
The Chargers weren’t without their flaws as they finished with 22 turnovers and were only 8-of-24 at the free-throw line. But Dundee-Crown had enough balance to get the job done as Will Stupar chipped in with nine points and Dantzler added seven off the bench.
“It was nice to see a bunch of different guys contribute, and they all got their points in different ways,” Dundee-Crown coach Lance Huber said. “Dylan had some putbacks on offensive rebounds, Will made free throws, Bernie made some 3’s and B-Rod got his in transition.”
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