South Beloit 77, Dakota 58: From the 3-point arc, to midcourt, to three-quarters down the court — the Sobos hit their threes Friday.
South Beloit sank 11 3-pointers to beat Dakota 77-58. The win gave South Beloit a share of the NUIC East Conference title with Polo. This is the first conference win for the Sobos (24-1, 12-1) since winning the Four Rivers in 2002-2003.
“It’s been a really tough conference this year,” South Beloit coach Mat Parker said. “We treated every game this year like it was the conference championship. So we were really happy to set the table for tonight like this. All those other conference championship games were leading up to this one.”
Four different players had at least one 3-pointer. Antonio Little (26 points) and Denzel Woods (18) led with four apiece, Jory Sturdevant added two, and senior Matt Ennis sank a crucial 3-pointer in the third.
Among the threes was Little’s buzzer shot at the end of the first quarter from three-quarters length down the court. Sturdevant added another buzzer shot at the end of the third from a few feet inside the halfcourt line.
“Usually when someone’s not hitting their threes for us, someone else is hitting them,” South Beloit senior Steven Counts said. “We have a lot of 3-point shooters. When the shots are open, we’re pretty confident, and we take them.”
Dakota (15-11, 7-6), had the height advantage but was still out-rebounded by South Beloit 32-20. Woods led the Sobos with 10.
“We feel that, even though other teams might be bigger than us, our athleticism really helps us,” Parker said.
South Beloit jumped out to an 18-11 lead at the end of the first and led by as much as 12 (32-20) with 3:23 left in the second. Dakota pulled within three, 36-33, at halftime after closing the first half with a 13-4 run. But South Beloit started the second half with an 11-0 run, and Dakota never came any closer than 10.
Dakota sophomore Kyle Benning had three 3-pointers of his own and finished with 25, while Jon Roemer followed with 21.
- Emily Tropp, rrstar.com
