Boys Basketball: Elgin muscles past Batavia

Updated: January 5, 2012 9:59PM

When Elgin players went into the locker room for halftime at Batavia on Thursday, it was inevitable that they had the feeling this could be Geneva all over again.

Coming off a big Christmas tournament title, they had staggered to a two-point deficit against the Bulldogs and it closely resembled their lone loss, in triple overtime at Geneva, after they had come in off a big Thanksgiving tournament championship at Buffalo Grove.

However, the Maroons righted their ship in the third quarter and pulled away down the stretch behind Kory Brown and Gerardo Mojica for a 49-43 Upstate Eight River victory.

“Our mentality in the fourth quarter really kicks up,” said Brown, who scored a game-high 17 points and is just two points short of the 1,000-point mark for his varsity career. “It should be like that for all four quarters. But in the first quarter it was down five or 10 levels.”

Brown scored 11 first-half points, then did more damage with his passing, rebounding and defense at game’s end to help secure the win. It was Mojica, who scored nine points and had seven rebounds, that did the real damage on the scoreboard.

Mojica broke a 39-all tie with 4:50 left by driving in over Batavia star Cole Gardner for a layup, and Elgin (13-1, 3-1) never trailed again. Then he found an open spot and Brown fed him a perfect pass for a layup with 1:51 remaining to turn a 43-41 lead into a four-point edge, forcing the Bulldogs (4-8, 1-3) into a shoot-and-foul mode.

After that, Brown made two free throws and Arie Williams 2-of-4 to lock up Elgin’s ninth straight win.

“With a kid like Brown, I thought Zach Strittmatter did a very good job on him, but (Brown) is a threat any time he touches the ball, and not necessarily to score,” Batavia coach Jim Roberts said. “But I thought what makes him a great player is he does a great job of taking pressure and finding teammates that can hurt you with dunk-downs and things like that.

“He’s done that masterfully for the last few years.”

The Maroons’ defense had a big part in the closing minutes, as well. Batavia had made 14-of-32 shots the first three quarters, but scored only four points in the final 5:19. The Bulldogs made just 1-of-7 shots in over that stretch.

“There’s never an easy road victory in this conference and we did enough to win,” Elgin coach Mike Sitter said.

Elgin came out stone cold from the field, hitting just 4-of-16 (25 percent) in the first quarter and 10-of-32 (31 percent) for the half. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs used their height advantage inside as Gardner had eight of his team-high 16 points and Stritmatter six of his 10 points in the first half.

“Early on, we had every shot we wanted,” Sitter said. “We just couldn’t put it in the hole.

“I was happy with the shots. They were open shots. I’m never going to tell the kids not to take an open shot.”

Williams had 10 points for Elgin, which shot just 34.5 percent from the floor (19-of-55). When the Maroons went into the locker room down two, Brown said there were “whispers,” about the Geneva loss.

“A couple of us realized it,” Brown said. “And everyone was like, well, let’s not make it like that game.

“We tend to come off breaks pretty bad. Maybe we’ll pick it up and get things going now.”

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