Boys basketball: Burlington Central holds off McHenry in FVC

BURLINGTON – Burlington Central’s final play looked quite similar to a lot of its other second-half possessions against McHenry.

The ball went to 6-foot-7 forward Myles Lowe near the free-throw line, Lowe then dumped it to Jake Johnson on the low block for a nice high-percentage shot.

That bucket gave the Rockets a three-point lead with 24 seconds remaining. Central came up with one more defensive stop at the buzzer for a 66-63 Fox Valley Conference boys basketball victory Tuesday night.

“Myles got the ball in the middle, and three guys swarmed him,” said Johnson, who had game highs of 20 points and eight rebounds. “It left me wide open.

“We talked about it at halftime, getting the ball to Myles and Patrick [Shell], even little [Ryan] Carpenter, in the middle. It was huge. On the opposite block, we were getting open layups. It just felt better.”

Central (16-8, 9-4 FVC) trailed McHenry 34-27 at halftime after the Warriors’ Marko Visnjevac nailed a deep 3-pointer just before the buzzer. The Warriors’ 1-2-2 zone ball-press defense had looked solid and held Central to 9-of-25 field-goal shooting.

But the Rockets turned it around immediately in the second half, with two Carpenter layups in the first minute. They went on a 13-3 run to start the third quarter and never trailed again.

“We felt like in the first half we were too much east-west, our guards were at the volleyball line, going side-to-side, we felt we missed a lot of middle cutters,” Central coach Brett Porto said. “We wanted to get Myles in the middle more, and he was able to catch, turn and face the rim. Just getting Myles in the free-throw line area made a big difference.”

Central hit 15 of 23 shots (65.2%) from the field in the second half. The Rockets also hit 18 of 20 free throws, while McHenry made 11 of 12.

“The whole second half they went at a better pace and got the ball where they wanted to,” Warriors coach Corky Card said. “Their kids just went at a nice pace, and their kid in the post shot it or made a layup. We didn’t speed them up as much.

“It wasn’t rocket science.”

Central pushed the lead to 59-49 midway through the fourth quarter before junior forward Caleb Jett got hot and helped the Warriors back. Jett scored nine of his team-high 15 in the fourth quarter and hit two 3s.

“My coaches were talking to me on the bench,” Jett said. “I didn’t have a good first half, so I kind of knew my team needed me in the moment and stepped up and hit big shots.

“We needed to focus to tighten up the middle, make sure we cover it. We didn’t really follow through with that and gave them easy baskets [in the second half].”

McHenry (18-7, 7-5) called timeout on its final possession with 6.6 seconds to go. Visnjevac inbounded to Jett, curled around a screen and got a pass back on the right wing, but his fadeaway 3 attempt over Lowe came up short.

“Our regular sideline out-of-bounds play had options off of it,” Card said. “We’re down three, all you want at the end of the game is a shot, and we got one, so …”

Central followed a path all too familiar this season in falling behind, but the Rockets made up for it in the second half.

“I don’t know why we go down 10 and then, around the second half … we have to stop doing that,” Johnson said. “We’re going to see teams that won’t let you come back.”

Shell added 15 points, and LJ Kerr scored 10 for Central. Adam Anwar hit three 3s and scored 14 for McHenry, while Visnjevac added 13.

“It’s kind of been our M.O.,” Porto said. “We start a lot of games like this and work our way back. Some we’ve been able to finish, some we haven’t.

“We show a lot of fight, and for our youth, at times, it’s great to see and great for them to understand we can come back in any situation. Hopefully we can take that with us and maybe start the game on one of those runs.”