Boys Basketbll: Rockford East downs Larkin

Updated: December 22, 2011 8:49PM

Coming into Thursday’s consolation title game against Rockford East at the Elgin Holiday Tournament, Larkin’s boys basketball team was hoping for a win to carry into its holiday break.

Instead, the Royals turned a tie game at the half into a 73-51 loss, and have two weeks before their next game to reflect on it. Larkin wound up 2-2 at the tournament, good for 11th place.

“We didn’t play well, and that’s disappointing,” Larkin coach Deryn Carter said. “That’s the last taste we get before a nice, two-week break. Maybe they’ll be motivated by a loss and come ready to work. It’s not the fact that we lost, just the way that we played. We’re not doing some things that by now a great team would do.”

Larkin (8-4) found itself tied with the E-Rabs, 27-27, after the first half. But instead of feeling like they were poised to make a run after the break, the Royals felt almost fortunate that the game was tied.

“In a way, we did (feel like we were in the game), because it was a tie game, but with the way we were playing, no, because we knew we could play better than that,” Larkin’s Antonio Pipes said. “In that sense, we weren’t really in the game, because we weren’t in control of it. We were just lucky enough to tie it up. We weren’t playing well, by any means.”

That luck ran out quickly in the third quarter. Andrew Lantz and Steven McNease hit back-to-back three-pointers to give Rockford East a 38-30 lead with 3:50 left in the third, and the E-Rabs never looked back. The closest Larkin got the rest of the way was six points. McNease tied teammate Devion Smith for a game-high 19 points.

“We had a guy that could guard him, if we could combine two of our guys,” Carter said. “One guy guards him well down low, the other guy guards him well out high. Whichever one we had on him, he took advantage of it. He’s a good player. That’s what good players do.”

In the fourth, Rockford East put the hammer down. The E-Rabs ended the game on a 16-4 run to win going away.

“They had open shot after open shot, offensive rebound after offensive rebound,” Carter said. “As a staff, we’ll like the next couple of practices. As players, they probably won’t. There may not be very many balls out there. We’ll get better. We’re learning. Sometimes you have to learn while you’re losing.”

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