With his team chipping away at Huntley’s 15-11 lead, Crystal Lake South coach Kyle McCaughn called a pivotal timeout with 4:43 left in the second quarter.

“It’s your ball,” he roared to his team with his voice rippling through the East Gym.  “You go get it!”

About half the court away was Huntley coach Steve Raethz squatting in front of his starting five.  He calmly, but confidently gave his players a few words of advice.

Thirty-eight seconds after the timeout, Huntley freshman Ali Andrews stepped back and buried a 3-pointer to give Huntley an 18-11 lead.  It wasn’t long before senior guard Haley Ream extended the lead to nine, quickly eradicating South’s comeback as Huntley marched into the locker room with a 25-15 lead at the half.

These differing coaching styles of McCaughn and Raethz came out onto the court as Huntley’s poignant, composed offense routed South’s aggressive defense in a lopsided 56-32 victory.

McCaughn put it simply after the game.

“That’s called a butt whoopin’ right there,” he said.

Going into its matchup, Huntley (9-2 overall, 2-0 Fox Valley Conference) ran into a hot Crystal Lake South (7-3, 2-1) team whose traditional full-court press defense has slain conference behemoths Cary-Grove and Crystal Lake Central in the last four days.

“They had a scheme to go against, [and] they knew what they needed to do to break it,” McCaughn said.  “We needed to make adjustments to stop it, and we didn’t make those adjustments tonight.”

The Raiders jumped out to an eight-point lead going into the second quarter but needed to fall back on its conventional shutdown defense to combat poor shooting early on.

“Our collective defensive effort was really solid,” Raethz said.  “I thought that really carried us for a stretch, especially in the first half when we had some lulls offensively.”

The Raiders answered their shaky second quarter with a game-high 19-point third quarter that featured the headlining Andrews sisters.

“Ali and [junior] Sam [Andrews] carried the load for us in the third,” Raethz said.  “Bethany Zornow stepped up and got some big baskets for us.”

Ali led the offensive onslaught with 19 points while Sam scored 16.  Huntley’s defense was strong throughout with South’s highest scorer checking out with eight points scored, albeit a few ill starters for the Gators.

As for Huntley’s calm, resilient attitude after that timeout in the second quarter, it came down to pure execution.

“Our girls know when they make mistakes, but I thought that we did a nice job of responding,” Raethz said.  “They knew what they needed to do, and they stepped up and did it.”