Kits Drill Deerfield For 15th Straight CSL South Win

Winning in the Central Suburban League hasn’t gotten any easier since Mike Ellis took over as head basketball coach at Evanston for the 2010-11 season.

Every school has at least one prime time/Division I type player. The coaches are top notch and the level of competition has never been higher.

Yet the Wildkits keep rolling.

Evanston drilled Deerfield 75-54 Friday night at Beardsley Gymnasium to open the second half of the division campaign on a dominant note, and stretched its CSL South division winning streak to 15 consecutive games. It’s the longest streak for the program since the 2017 and 2018 squads combined for 12 straight victories.

Deerfield, in fact, was the last division team to beat the Kits last year in the opener. But the Warriors, who only lost 52-45 the first time the two squads met this season, didn’t have the firepower to match an ETHS squad that shot 50 percent (14-of-28) from 3-point distance this time around.

The Wildkits have pushed their team season scoring average to 70 points per game with a share-the-wealth offense that’s hard for most foes to keep up with. “Be hard to guard” is a mantra that Ellis and his staff have preached and those lessons have been embraced by a roster that turned over with four new starters following last year’s Final Four run.

And you won’t see much 1-on-1 individual play from Evanston, now 15-3 overall and 6-0 in CSL South play. It hasn’t taken long for the current squad members to recognize that an extra pass might mean a better shot for a teammate.

Evanston’s balance was in evidence again Friday night as the Kits tuned up for a shootout showdown Saturday against Oswego East and DePaul recruit Mason Lockett at Homewood-Flossmoor.

Ben Ojala (19 points, 7 assists), Vito Rocca (16 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists) and Dion Lane Jr. (13 points) showed the way, backed up by Tate Schroeder’s 9 points and 8 from Timi Ogunsanya.

That long winning streak is also a product of Ellis’ old school, one-game-at-a-time approach.

“We’ve won 15 in a row? That’s something I really don’t reflect on,” he said. “The only thing I care about is how prepared we are for the next one (next Friday) at Glenbrook North. Now that’s our biggest game.

“(High school) basketball has expanded beyond the city of Chicago and suburban basketball has really picked up when it comes to the quality of play. And those suburban schools are the ones in our conference. It’s not easy to win on the road in our conference. The kids all know each other from summer ball and AAU, and they have to have the maturity to understand that even if you think you’re ‘better’ than some team, it really doesn’t matter what you THINK will happen. You always have to bring your best game.”

After trailing 17-16 at the first quarter break, the host team reeled off 13 unanswered points to open the second quarter with sophomore Ojala converting a 15-foot jumper, a step-back 3-point basket at the top of the key, and another 3-pointer from the corner. He also earned an assist on the final basket of that surge, a 3-pointer by Schroeder, and finished with 11 points in the period as ETHS built a 36-28 lead.

Deerfield never got any closer. Lane fueled a third period surge with 11 points of his own and by the end of the quarter the Kits had tallied more points than in the entire first meeting between the two schools.

“That first half was similar to the first time we played them. We didn’t want the second half to be similar because they outscored us,” Ellis reminded his players. “Our guys did a good job of understanding they had to play for 32 minutes to come out on top.

“They understand that we’re hard to guard as a team when everyone is in on the action. We have the skills that fit in well with our system and they’re doing a good job of playing to their strengths, and playing through each other.

“This game rewards unselfish play and good decisions. If you make the right play that results in a basket for someone else, then the next time down (the court) the ball will find you.”

Evanston shot 57 percent from the floor overall (28-of-49) in the victory. Deerfield (12-6 overall, 2-4 CSL South) did have three players in double figures but the Kits kept 6-foot-9 senior Jacob Pollack in check again.

Pollack, who tallied 11 points the first time the two teams met, managed a team-high 16 points but double-team tactics limited his touches in scoring range, especially in the second half.

“We went with a convenient trap, because we just wanted him to have to pick up his dribble and pass the ball. I think we did a pretty good job with that kind of ball pressure,” Ellis added.