High school boys basketball: Woodstock loses to Rockford Christian in E.C. Nichols Holiday Classic

MARENGO – The Woodstock boys basketball team overcame a pair of double-digit deficits in a quarterfinal of Marengo’s E.C. Nichols Holiday Classic on Monday. On Tuesday, the Blue Streaks again fell behind by double digits.

This time, the comeback came up short, as Woodstock dropped its semifinal game to Rockford Christian, 66-55. The Blue Streaks will play North Boone for third place at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

“We don't fault anyone for it,” Woodstock coach Al Baker said. “I don’t think we have anybody that goes out there and doesn’t give us their best effort. They just played better than us tonight.

“We’ve got to look at the ways they played better, whether it was on the offensive glass, whether it was post play, whether it was press defense. We’ll look at the ways that we fell short and we’ve got to get serious about getting better at those things.”

Woodstock (7-3) was led by senior Vannis Smith with 13 points, senior Zach Cullum with 10, senior Daniel Shook with 11 and junior Matthew Shook with nine.

Rockford Christian shared the ball well, with three players scoring in double figures. Forwards Nicholas Kuchenreuter (24 points) and Matt Glogowski (16) gave the Blue Streaks trouble inside with their size and physicality.

“I thought that was the main factor,” Baker said. "It wasn’t even so much their height as much as they were just a lot stronger than us down there. They kind of had our way with us. There wasn’t a timeout or quarter break that we didn’t talk about boxing out and keeping them off the glass. We just struggled to do that.”

Rockford Christian led 28-23 late in the second quarter when the Royal Lions went on a 10-0 run stretching into the third quarter to take a double-digit advantage.

Woodstock cut that lead to eight on several occasions. With 27 second remaining, Daniel Shook hit a corner 3-pointer to make it a seven-point game, 62-55, but the Blue Streaks got no closer.

"I think we’ve definitely got to play better in our full-court defense and we’ve got to box out," Shook said. "We gave up way too many offensive rebounds and put-back layups. That really hurt us."