The Rochelle boys basketball, coming off a tough, high-scoring conference loss to Sycamore, came out firing on all cylinders against Streator in Saturday afternoon’s game at Pops Dale Gymnasium.

The Hubs used a game-changing 22-9 run spanning the final four minutes of the first quarter and first four minutes of the second to help build an 18-point lead at halftime in a 71-46 victory over the host Bulldogs.

“I was really proud of how our kids played overall today,” Rochelle coach Tim Thompson said. “We had a great battle with Sycamore (a 94-82 loss on Friday) but came up a little bit short so it was nice to get right back at it. We knew Streator was going to really try and slow the game down and run a bunch of offensive sets in the half court. We knew we’d have to make some adjustments as the game went along defensively, but offensively we just had to stick with what we do well.”

Rochelle (11-10) jumped out to a 20-12 lead after the opening eight minutes as Mason Ludwig sank a pair of 3-pointers and Kasin Avila added five points. The Hubs then pushed the advantage to 35-17 at the intermission as Brody Bruns, in his second game back from injury, scored six points and Van Gerber five points.

Avila led Rochelle with 16 points, Bruns added 14 points, Gerber 12 points, Warren Schweitzer nine points and Ludwig eight points.

“I felt like right from the start we were able to do a good job of limiting Streator to one shot and that in turn allowed us to get out in transition and play a little free,” Thompson said. “In the past we used a lot of defensive pressure to create some offense, but with the big guys we have we want to take advantage of them. We will always take a fast break when we can, but we also feel we have some pretty talented big guys who can do good things around the rim.

“We weren’t really able to go on any big extended runs, but it felt like in the first half we were trading two hoops for one. If you can do that over a long period of a game, you’re obviously going to put yourself in a great position to win.”

Streator (8-10) - behind LA Moton scoring 13 of his game-high 18 points in the third - was able to close the gap to 15 near the end of the period, but the visitors responded with a 12-2 run to help seal the win.

After Moton, Joe Hoekstra recorded another double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds to go along with five blocked shots, while Colin Byers chipped in a pair of treys for six points.

“We have to be top to bottom, and that starts with me, better mentally to start games,” Streator coach Beau Doty said. “I’m not sure what it was today, but we just didn’t come out ready to go and never really got on track.

“Rochelle has a bunch of size (front line of 6-5, 6-5, 6-7) which we knew would be a challenge for us. The Bruns kid is such a tremendous player and while he’s coming off an injury, he is still really good even not at 100%. Our bread and butter is trying to beat teams up on the boards, in the paint, but Rochelle was able to neutralize that, and we just didn’t step up in other areas to counter act that.

“They have so much fire power it’s very difficult to get two or three defensive stops in a row, so once we got behind double digits in the first half it was going to be tough hill to try and climb back from. We had a good offensive stretch there in the third quarter but just weren’t able to make up any ground.”

Streator will need to regroup as next week brings with it a home Illinois Central Eight Conference game against Manteno on Tuesday before entertaining East Peoria on Wednesday and a trip to play Morton on Saturday.

Rochelle has away games on Monday and Tuesday against Freeport and Genoa-Kingston respectively before a home Interstate 8 Conference game against Ottawa on Friday.