Crystal Lake South puts it all together at Hinkle Holiday Classic

A rough five-minute stretch against Waubonsie Valley didn’t detract from the week Crystal Lake South had at Jacobs’ Hinkle Holiday Classic.

The Gators trailed undefeated and state-ranked Waubonsie by just one point going into the final three minutes of the third quarter of Friday night’s championship game. The Warriors then unleashed a 17-point run en route to a 69-47 victory and repeat Hinkle title.

But South coach Matt LePage liked what he saw from his team that included all-tournament selections in senior guard A.J. Demirov and sophomore guard Carson Trivellini.

“I think we took a lot from this tournament,” LePage said after seeing his team’s six-game winning streak end. “We were doing a great job of playing as a team, trusting each other and complementing our offense and defense together. We put it together this week.”

It included wins by an average of 31 points over traditionally solid programs in Bartlett, Naperville North and Grayslake Central. It continued into the title game when South took a 21-15 lead midway through the second quarter on the fourth of five first-half 3-pointers by Demirov.

“We were up six at one point and up to that point and at halftime we were doing pretty much everything we wanted to,” Demirov said. “We were getting into everything we wanted.”

That forced Waubonsie to abandon its trapping zone defense for a man-to-man where it put Illinois State-bound tournament MVP Tyreek Coleman on Demirov after a 17-point first half. Demirov also saw double teams and only got four more shots in the second half and finished with 22.

“Credit to them for bringing the defense and obviously having a great game plan,” Demirov said.

“Coming into this game we knew this team wanted to play through him. He’s their guy and we had to find him,” Coleman said of Demirov. “Going to halftime we decided we wanted to make their other guys beat us. We went man and made him play and see what their other guys were made of.”

LePage said opposing defenses double-teaming Demirov is nothing new. Losing Trivellini and his ball-handling ability early in the fourth quarter from a gash over his eye that required a hospital trip and stitches didn’t help.

LePage and Demirov added that having other players increase their confidence at handling the ball will be important with South (11-3, 3-1) and Huntley in a second-place tie in the Fox Valley Conference behind McHenry. The Gators showed in the four games at Jacobs they have more offensive threats than just Demirov (15.5 ppg, 10 3-pointers) in senior Cooper Buelna (11.3), Trivellini (10.8) and sophomore Nick Stowasser (8.8).

“As we go to the [Fox Valley] conference season we’ve got to learn from this and get better in some areas,” LePage said. “It was a good run.”

Hinkle all-tourney team: Besides South’s Demirov, the all-tournament team at Jacobs included Jacobs' Ben Jurzak, Cary-Grove’s Adam Bauer and Johnsburg’s Jayce Schmitt.