Crystal Lake South wanted payback against McHenry, which handed the Gators their only home loss last season.

South’s Noah Cook wanted payback too, even though he didn’t play for the Gators a year ago.

Wednesday night, Huntley transfer Cook got his payback and so did his new teammates.

Cook, Carson Trivellini and Nick Stowasser each scored 19 points – with Cook and Stowasser combining for five dunks – and the Gators cooled off visiting McHenry 59-51 in a battle between two of the hottest teams in the Fox Valley Conference.

South improved to 12-6 and 5-2 in the FVC with its sixth win in a row. McHenry, which had its six-game winning streak snapped, fell to 13-5 and 5-2.

“They took it to us,” McHenry coach Corky Card said of the Gators. “I thought they got loose balls, they got rebounds when they needed them, and they got good shots when they needed them. And I would have been happy if, at any time, we stepped up.”

South and McHenry tied for first place in the FVC last season, as each team went 16-2. Three weeks after winning a thrilling game at South, McHenry faced Huntley in the teams’ FVC finale in late February, on Huntley’s senior night, and needed a fourth-quarter rally to win.

As a sophomore on Huntley’s varsity last season, Cook played heavy minutes coming off the bench. He remembers the McHenry game all too well.

“I really wanted to beat [McHenry] for my guys last year,” Cook said. “It all came together.”

Stowasser, who was one of the Gators’ first players off the bench last season, made his presence known in every quarter Wednesday night.

He stole the ball and threw down a two-handed breakaway dunk late in the first quarter. He then beat the buzzer with another two-handed flush after Ryan Morgan rebounded the ball and pushed it ahead to David McFadden, who passed the ball ahead to Stowasser.

Midway through the third quarter, Stowasser soared high to rebound Cook’s missed 3-pointer and dunked the ball with two hands.

“That’s my first-ever putback dunk,” said Stowasser, whose five rebounds included two on the offensive glass. “Normally teams box me out, but today I got some open looks [on putbacks] and some free lanes.”

Stowasser beat the third-quarter buzzer as well, scoring on a putback to extend South’s lead to 49-36.

Adam Anwar, who led McHenry with 13 points and seven rebounds, hit a 3-pointer with 4:28 left in the fourth quarter to pull the Warriors to within 53-47. But after Trivellini split two free throws, Stowasser drained a right-corner 3 – his third of the game – off an inbounds pass, and the 6-foot-7 Cook slammed an alley-oop pass from Trivellini in the lane.

“We play really hard every game,” said Cook, who dunked twice in the fourth. “We just go out there and give it our all.”

Since starting 1-4, South is 11-2.

“We needed time, we needed practice,” said coach Matt LePage, whose Gators host Crystal Lake Central on Friday. “We were still establishing roles, and I think we’re starting to get there. We’re not all the way there, but you can see when we start to understand how to share the ball and trust each other what kind of team we can be.”

Payback felt good for Stowasser.

“We wanted to get back home against them and defend the Swamp,” Stowasser said. “That was fun to get back at them from last year.”

Blake Renfro and Nathan Ottaway each scored 11 points for McHenry, while Dane Currie (two fourth-quarter 3-pointers) had 10. The Warriors committed 19 turnovers against South’s 1-3-1 zone, and the Gators’ half-court pressure also caused problems.

“All I know is that we did not play well tonight,” said Card, whose Warriors visit FVC leader Cary-Grove on Friday. “[South] came out ready to play. They took it right at us.”