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St. Edward rolls over Harvest Christian

To some it was just a cold, snowy, November Monday in the suburbs.

To high school boys basketball players and coaches across the area, Nov. 24 was Opening Day, a date they had been eagerly anticipating since March.

"Everyone wakes up and you think about it being your first game," St. Edward guard Gino Domel said. "You're excited about it and you talk about it at school. It's kind of what you're focused on all day. You don't even want to go to school. You just want to skip it and go right to the game. At the same time, school is the important part."

Not only did Domel have his priorities in the right order Monday, he had his shooting touch. The senior gathered a loose ball with time running out in the first half and buried a 3-point buzzer-beater to give his team a 10-point lead over Harvest Christian Academy.

Domel would go on to tally 11 points in support of leading scorer Nick Duffy (20 points), and St. Edward opened the second half on a 12-0 run to pull away for a 58-33 victory in the opening game of the 8th Annual Warrior Thanksgiving Basketball Classic at Westminster Christian in Elgin.

The contest marked the high school coaching debut of Harvest Christian's Scott Cork, a former youth league coach who spent the last five seasons as an assistant men's basketball coach at Elgin Community College. He said he felt the same butterflies as the players.

"I was definitely very nervous for my first game at the high school level, but overwhelmingly, I was prepared," Cork said.

St. Edward jumped to to a 17-9 lead through one quarter, thanks to 3 buckets from Duffy, a 6-foot-4 senior.

Three-pointers in the second quarter by Harvest Christian senior guard Noah Fox and sophomore guard Riley Steiner kept the Lions within 7 points until Domel beat the halftime buzzer with his 3-pointer.

St. Edward's 12-0 surge to open the third quarter included 4 Domel free throws, 2 Duffy inside baskets, a fast-break layup from promising sophomore guard Kelvin Cortez-Harvey and a baseline jumpshot from junior Jose Sandoval.

St. Edward led 45-26 after three quarters and coach PJ White got everyone on the roster playing time in the second half. Still, the 25-point victory for the Green Wave did not come without criticism from their coach.

"It's clear we have to get into basketball shape," White said. "We've still got some guys in football shape. Hopefully, that won't take long."

"There's a huge difference," said Duffy, a wide receiver this fall for St. Edward's 10-1 football team, of being prepared to play basketball from a cardiovascular standpoint. "It's just constant running. You don't get a break every 10 seconds like football. I hope we'll be better on Wednesday for our next game."

Cortez-Harvey had 9 points and 2 steals in his varsity debut for St. Edward, which next faces Alden-Hebron on Wednesday at 3:45 p.m.

Fox scored a team-high 8 points, to go with 2 assists and a steal, while Steiner and Brett Cramer (5 rebounds) each contributed 6 points for Harvest Christian. The Lions resume tournament play Tuesday against host Westminster Christian at 7:30 p.m.

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