Boys Basketball: Second-quarter spurt lifts Metea Valley

Updated: December 10, 2011 11:12PM

Metea Valley coach Bob Vozza constantly stresses to his team to limit opponents to single-digit scoring quarters.

On Saturday night in Aurora, the Mustangs provided Vozza one such quarter, which paved the way to the Mustangs’ 55-43 victory over South Elgin.

Seeing its strong start to the game go by the boards — courtesy of the Storm concluding the first quarter on an 11-0 run, capped by a three-pointer from Storm guard Jake Maestranzi at the buzzer — Metea Valley wasn’t fazed.

In the game’s eight next minutes, the Mustangs turned a seven-point deficit into an eight-point halftime lead, seizing control of the game behind the contributions of junior forward Sean Davis.

“We talk about it actually — striving for those single-digit quarters,” Vozza said. “I think we started the game with a good spurt. Then they came out with that run at the end of the first quarter. We went to a couple different defenses that helped out tremendously. They did miss some shots, so it wasn’t a perfect quarter. But it was pretty darn close.”

Davis had nine of his 13 points in the second quarter as the Mustangs outscored the Storm 15-0 on their way to engineering a 15-point swing.

“That was big. That was big,” Vozza said of the Mustangs’ response to South Elgin’s 11-0 run to end the first quarter. “If we wouldn’t have matched that, it would’ve been a back-and-forth game.”

After a basket from senior Milan Bojanic with 3:16 left in the second quarter put Metea Valley (8-0, 3-0 Upstate Eight Valley) back in front at 17-16. It would never trail again.

“We started off hot in the first quarter, but then we kind of let them score a lot of points on us,” Metea Valley senior Ryan Solomon said. “In the second quarter, I think we really ramped up the defense and we played hard.”

Solomon led the team with 15 points, while Bojanic chipped in with nine points as the Mustangs held off the Storm, which cut its deficit to four points on a couple different occasions in the third quarter after enduring an 8:23 scoring drought.

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