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Hoffman Estates defeats St. Francis

As they used to say in pickup basketball games, Hoffman Estates’ Jorden Thornton had next.

After St. Francis’ Zach Prociuk lit it up in the middle quarters, the sophomore guard reignited to lead the Hawks to a 57-51 win over St. Francis at the 12th annual Glenbard West Holiday Classic on Friday. Going 3-0 in pool play, Hoffman Estates (7-5) meets the host Hilltoppers for the title at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Thornton made three of his four 3-pointers and scored 11 of his team-high 23 points in the fourth quarter. Prociuk scored 25 points on 10-of-14 shooting from the floor.

“This was one of those days where I just felt like everything was going in,” said Thornton, who scored 1 point more than teammate Jordan Robinson’s 22.

“I got some great team looks — my team was giving me the ball and they just kept telling me to shoot it, so I just shot it with some confidence,” Thornton said.

As did Prociuk. The senior guard scored on everything from a putback to a coast-to-coast layup to give St. Francis a 34-31 halftime lead. He stayed hot with an 11-point third quarter as St. Francis (4-5) took a 47-40 lead into the fourth.

“It starts on defense, you get some stops and then that leads to some offense,” Prociuk said. “When you make some shots you feel better, and when the guys get you open shots — Killian (Brown) and Adam (Hart) and (Jason Sullivan) and (Nick Fabianski), they were taking their guys to the hole and finding the open guy.”

It can end on defense, too. As Prociuk canned a pullup jumper for his 25th point at 1:55 of the third quarter, Hoffman Estates coach Luke Yanule yelled to his bench, “25 points! 25 points!” Prociuk didn’t score again. And after a Hart tip-in tied the score 51-51 with 3:30 left in the game, neither did St. Francis.

“I thought we had some really good defensive possessions in the first half, and it was only a 3-point game at halftime,” Yanule said. “But that third quarter got away from us a little bit and I’m just glad that we had the character collectively to come together and get it done.”

Robinson broke the tie on a jump shot with 2:17 left in the game, and the Hawks concluded their game-ending 6-0 run with another Robinson free throw and 2 by Thornton.

“We had an opportunity to beat a good team, and we’re not there yet from a consistency standpoint, playing four quarters. But we’re trying to build on the positives that we had today,” said St. Francis coach Bob Ward.

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