St. Francis de Sales ousts Westminster Christian
The Westminster Christian boys basketball team posed as the "Comeback Kids" when the Warriors rallied from two 8-point deficits, one in the final 6 minutes of Friday's regional title win against defending Class 1A state champion Mooseheart.
Tuesday's Harvest Christian sectional semifinal for all intent and purposes was over after the first 6 minutes, the point of no return.
St. Francis de Sales ran the Warriors out of the gym quickly, 82-45, at the Mitchell Swaback Athletic Center in Elgin to advance to Friday's sectional final behind a high octane first quarter that even had Westminster head coach Bruce Firchau perplexed.
The Pioneers (13-13), who shot well, rebounded well and ran the fast break to perfection, jumped out to an 11-2 lead in the first 3 minutes thanks to the streaky shooting of Erik Rodriguez and Jeremy Greenlee's steal and one-handed slam with 5:03 to go. After Rodriguez buried his second 3-pointer to cap a 26-8 first quarter right before the buzzer, the rout was on.
"We knew they were going to be athletic but we weren't anticipating that," Warriors' forward Sam Carani said. "It definitely was a shock to us at first."
Westminster's perimeter approach led to a 2-for-12 shooting first quarter and in return St. Francis de Sales torched the nets, going 11 of 16 from the field in the opening quarter - which included four 3s - as Derrick Dawson was a perfect 5-for-5, including two 3-pointers for 12 points, and the ice cold Warriors (22-7), who didn't attempt a free throw all night, just had no solution.
"I don't think I had any answers at all tonight for the way they played. They were tremendous," Firchau said of the Pioneers, who featured three first-half dunks. "They manhandled us. I don't know any other way to put it. Right from the start."
St. Francis' Tyler Streeter led all scorers with 26 points to go along with 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals on 11 of 17 shooting. Seventeen of his points came in the second half while Dawson finished with 25 points and 2 steals on 11 of 15 shooting. Rodriguez finished with 13 points and all three drained three 3-pointers each on 5 of 9 shooting.
The exclamation point came with 5 minutes left in the second quarter when Dawson dished an alley oop off the glass to Streeter for a two-handed slam and a 33-10 Pioneers lead. St. Francis de Sales scored 13 points off the fast break in the first half and capitalized on 18 Westminster missed shots while missing only 9 of its 26 field goal attempts in the half.
"Coach (Kevin Wolf) said, 'win or go home' and nobody wanted to go home," said Dawson, whose team finished at a 57.8 percent clip and 9 of 16 from downtown. "The tough teams that we have to play in the (Chicago) Catholic League really prepared us for this one. That right there is what we bring against St. Rita, St. Joseph's, and if we can bring it here nobody can top that, nobody can play with us."
Carani, who fouled out with 16 points and 6 rebounds to end his four-year Westminster career with two regional championships, gave the Warriors a glimmer of a hope in the third quarter when Firchau scraped his game plan, including the zone defense, and asserted the 6-4 big man in the post. Westminster forced 2 turnovers, Dillion Rejman (9 points) drained a deep 3 and a layup each by Carani and Scott Graziano led to a 9-3 run in the first 2 minutes that cut the 22-point halftime deficit to 16.
"We should have done it sooner, we should have done it right away," Firchau said. "That possibly could have been one solution but we still had to go play defense on the other end."
But the defensive effort went to no avail as the Pioneers fired back with an immediate 12-0 run and the lead reached its summit at 30 twice in the fourth quarter.
"We wanted to try to control the tempo of this game but we never came close to controlling the tempo of this game," Firchau said. "But I was very proud of coaching these young men. I thought they were first class all season. I think 22-7, winning the regional, going back-to-back, that's a tribute to them."