St. Edward’s depth does in Marian Central
St. Edward boys basketball coach P.J. White has two things most coaches would die to have on their teams: depth and balance.
They’re two significant pieces of success for the Green Wave this season and when White saw two key players have off nights in Elgin Wednesday night, there wasn’t any worry.
In the Green Wave’s 60-48 Suburban Christian Gold Blue win over Marian Central (3-23, 2-6), Anotnio Domel, Danny Favela and John Butzow carried the slack. Butzow poured in a game-high 15 points while Favela scored 13 and led the team in rebounds with 9. As for Domel, he had 9 points and 4 assists as the three spearheaded the Green Wave’s full-court defense, a major problem for Marian Central in the first half.
“That’s the nice thing about this team this year,” said White, on a night where Adrian Ponce and Davontae Elam combined for just 13 points. “Last game I looked and we had four or five guys in double figures, and if it wasn’t five, the last guy maybe had eight, so it spreads itself out a little bit. One week it’s these three, the next week it’s those three and that makes it kind of nice. “
Domel and Butzow were major catalysts in the second quarter, when the Wave (19-5, 7-2) stretched a 9-point lead to 16 at the half. Domel started the quarter off with a 3 in the left corner, and Butzow was busy being a thief. Three of his 4 steals came in that quarter and he was rewarded at one point from Domel, as he hit Butzow on a cut into the lane with 3:10 left that put the Green Wave up 27-16. Favela scored a 3-point play on the next possession and a Domel layup with 1:59 remaining made it 34-16.
The Wave shot 22 of 42 from the field and Domel, Butzow and Favela were a combined 15 for 25 shooting. The lead was pushed to as many as 19.
“You got to pick it up, because Adrian and (Davontae), they’re really physical,” Domel said. “When they’re off the floor you have to pick it up to the next level.”
Although the Hurricanes (3-23, 2-6) outscored the Wave 28-24 in the second half and won the glass 27-23, the game went into a major lull in the fourth as White went away from the pressure the Wave applied to Marian in the first half.
“Key to our game was pressure. We’re up by 17 and I didn’t think we should press, I just didn’t think that was appropriate,” White said. “So we just stayed in a zone and kind of let them hang around a little bit but on the other hand, we were going too fast on offense, we weren’t coming down trying to run an offense, we were coming down, one pass and shoot and dribble or go to the basket. We weren’t scoring, they were going down and scoring, we never ran any clock.”
Marian Central was led by Tommy Waytula, who scored all 10 of his points in the second half. He also had 6 rebounds.