Sometimes it`s hard to tell the winners from the losers without looking at the scoreboard. Neither Rolling Meadows nor Hersey had the look of a loser Friday night after their Mid-Suburban League crossover game.
Rolling Meadows came away with a 69-66 victory after leading by as many as 19 points in the first half. Rolling Meadows boosted its record to 3-1 while Hersey fell to 1-3, but nobody could have guessed the Huskies` record from the way they played the last three quarters.
”We got down by 18 points in the first five minutes and then came back to beat them by 16 the rest of the game,” Hersey coach Don Rowley said. ”I thought the kids did a nice job the last 3 3/4 periods. We just started so slowly.”
Rolling Meadows, with guard Dan O`Connor scoring 22 points and backcourt mate Glenn Olson adding 12, wasn`t embarrassed with the victory. Rolling Meadows had to hold off a Hersey surge in which the Huskies took two three-point shots in the last 15 seconds that could have tied it. O`Connor made 5 of 7 free throws in the final period.
”I knew they`d play that tough,” O`Connor said. ”I was kind of surprised they got that close.”
Rolling Meadows started the second half with a 12-point lead and kept control in the third period. Still, the Mustangs couldn`t regain the spark they had early.
With five minutes left in the game, Rolling Meadows still led by 12. A three-pointer by Hersey`s Mark Schuler followed by a steal and a basket by Jake Olson cut it to 64-57 with 3:55 left, the closest Hersey had been since the first two minutes.
”Our kids came out in the second half and just wanted to win,” Rolling Meadows coach Dave Brown said. ”We weren`t as aggressive and we weren`t as focused. We just wanted to win.”
Two baskets by Rich Wheeler in the last 2:19 gave Rolling Meadows the cushion it needed. Cyrus Turner, with 15 points in the last three quarters, cut the margin to 69-66 with two baskets in the last minute. Turner and Schuler each took three-point shots in the final 15 seconds but couldn`t get them to fall. Thomas Rodgers scored 16 in Hersey`s rally.
Hersey came into the game with two experienced players, guard Jake Olson and center Turner, off last season`s MSL North champions, and it showed. The Huskies made five turnovers in the first three minutes and fell behind 11-0.
”Maybe our inexperience caused us to get off to a slow start,” Rowley said. ”Pretty quickly that seemed to go away.”
Early in the game, Rolling Meadows played a tough zone defense alternating with a man-to-man, denying the ball to Turner and forcing Hersey to rely on outside shooting. Hersey scored just seven points in the first period with its only field goal a three-pointer by Jake Olson. Turner, who would score nine in the second period, was scoreless in the first eight minutes.
”We were using different defenses in the first quarter and I think that confused them,” Brown said. ”Then they started to figure out what we were doing and we had to change things.”
While the Rolling Meadows defense kept Hersey off balance, the offense scored inside and out. Glenn Olson, with three first-half threes, and O`Connor hit from long range while Brian Fredrick, who finished with 12 points, scored well inside.
