GENESEO — Rochelle senior Riley Lodico struggled to find his shooting rhythm early in the season, but the scrappy guard broke out in a big way when the Hubs varsity basketball team took down the Geneseo Maple Leafs on the road Friday evening to become 5-4 overall and 2-0 in the Northern Illinois Big 12 West.

“We knew that playing here has been tough,” Lodico said. “We knew it was going to be tough, so getting a win here is really big for us. I’ve been trying to keep my head up since it’s been rough for me lately, but I knew that it was going to come soon and tonight was the night. Our conference is really tough, so being 2-0 on our side is great and we just have to keep pushing.”

Lodico splashed home six 3-point shots on Friday for a season-high 22 points, and junior Johnny Beck scored 24 points to lead the Hubs over Geneseo by a final score of 69-48. Head coach Tim Thompson was happy with his team’s effort against the Maple Leafs, and he said he was especially excited to see his senior captain Lodico take a chunk of the initiative on offense.

“We’ve been looking for it all year and we can’t get it from a better kid,” Thompson said. “There aren’t any kids who care more about high school basketball and high school sports than Riley, and not only is he a leader on the basketball court, but he’s a leader throughout the school… It was so great to see him have a game like that, and the team feeds off of him.”

Rochelle trailed Geneseo 12-8 after the first quarter before Beck almost single-handedly took over the game in the second quarter, scoring 16 points to help the Hubs jump ahead of the Maple Leafs 33-27 at halftime. Sophomore standout Isaiah Rivera had 11 points for Geneseo at the half.

“We played with amazing tempo and Komla [Gati] shut down Rivera,” Beck said. “Everybody guarded well and we had great tempo going. We weren’t expecting to blow them out, but we believed in ourselves to win and they got tired even though we were able to keep it going.”

Lodico’s shooting lifted the Hubs in the third quarter, and Rochelle maintained a manageable lead entering the fourth quarter, with the purple and white up 43-35 over the Maple Leafs. The Hubs slowly began to wear Geneseo down with their full-court pressure late in the game, and a pair of vicious dunks by Beck on the other end, including one over contact from the highly-touted prospected Rivera, sealed Geneseo’s fate.

“Those plays are only going to bring Johnny more confidence,” Thompson said. “When he can get into transition and make plays like that, it’s going to encourage him to go faster on the break… When you dunk on somebody who’s a Division I talent like he did, that’s only going to carry on his confidence, and he’s starting to make better decisions with the basketball.”

Senior Noah Mershon chipped in 11 points for Rochelle on Friday, while senior Angel Aguirre totaled six points. Junior Kaleb Ackland and sophomore Seth Gould combined to score five points for the Hubs, who will face Wauconda in the opening round of the E.C. Nichols Holiday Classic at Marengo High School on Saturday, Dec. 23 at noon. Rochelle will be seeking its second consecutive tournament title after bringing home the crown last season.

Rivera led the Maple Leafs with 20 points.

“We knew their pack-line defense was going to be tough and we knew how good Rivera was,” Thompson said. “Komla deserves a lot of credit… Rivera’s going to get 19 or 20 points no matter what you do, but Komla wore him out. His rebounding and his defense keeps us in games.”