St. Edward advances to 2A sectional final
EL PASO (Ill.) - It was far from a thing of beauty but at this point of the season beauty isn't necessary.
St. Edward's boys basketball team overcame its own struggles at the free throw line by clamping down on defense, which led to a 39-36 win over Fieldcrest Wednesday night in the semifinals of the Class 2A El Paso-Gridley sectional.
"We're living on the edge," smiled St. Edward coach PJ White, whose team made just 4 of 11 from the line, that coming on the heels of a 7-for-16 performance in its regional title game win over IC Catholic.
"We gotta make free throws. But we played a lot of good defense,"
The Green Wave (25-5) became only the fourth St. Edward boys team in school history to win 25 games. St. Edward can make more history at 7 p.m. Friday when it takes on Reed-Custer in the sectional title game. The Wave will be seeking the program's first sectional title since 1997. Reed-Custer (25-5) made 19 3-pointers Tuesday night in winning its semifinal, 81-78, over Illiana Christian.
"We have a pretty special group of guys," said St. Edward senior Nick Duffy, who made 3 of 6 from the line in the final 19 seconds to help seal the win. "I think we can win every time we step on the court. This is no surprise to me. But we have to make our free throws. We have to fix that."
St. Edward, which had a sizable crowd on hand despite the 2-hour plus drive to central Illinois, didn't let the hostile environment of playing a school 10 minutes away bother it. The Green Wave, held under 40 points in a game for the first time this season, stayed with the Knights (23-7) through a defensive first half and trailed just 15-14 at the break after Joe French hit a 10-footer with 1:32 left in the second quarter.
"We're used to playing in a tiny gym that's real loud and out student section was loud tonight," said Duffy, who finished with 7 points and 4 assists.
St. Edward fell behind 24-19 with 3:57 left in the third quarter when Fieldcrest senior Ryan Barth hit a 3-pointer from the right wing. But the Wave battled back right away as French made a layup off his own steal and Duffy scored on a putback to make it 24-23. Senior Grant Jochums scored for the Knights but sophomore Kelvin Cortez-Harvey nailed a 3-pointer from the left corner with six seconds left in the third to send the game to the final period tied at 26.
And even though Fieldcrest opened the fourth with a 3-pointer from junior Drew Barth, who had a game-high 19 points and five 3s, the Wave seemed to be energized. French knocked down a 3 to tie it and with 6:48 to play St. Edward took the lead for good, 31-29, when senior Danny Favela drove the lane and scored.
Favela came up huge for the Green Wave on defense as well, making 3 steals in the fourth quarter.
"I'm defense oriented," Favela said. "As a team we started talking more around the perimeter. Talking to each other down the stretch really helped us tonight."
St. Edward built its lead to 35-30 on a basket by French and then a Favela layup off a nifty feed from French with 4:39 left. Jochums made 3 of 4 from the line and St. Edward turned the ball over three times and suddenly the Knights were within 35-33 with 1:12 to go. But Fieldcrest missed the front end of a one-and-bonus with 22 seconds left and Duffy split a pair of free throws with 19.6 left to make it 36-33. Duffy made another free throw with 15 seconds left and Cortez-Harvey made one with 7.1 to go to seemingly put the game out of reach at 38-33.
But Drew Barth threw in an acrobatic turnaround 3 with 2.2 seconds left to make it 38-36 and give the Knights some hope. Duffy ended that hope when he sealed the win with the final free throw of the game with 0.3 seconds left.
"It was mostly our defense," said Duffy. "Danny got us going with some steals and that's probably the best defensive game we've played all year."
Cortez-Harvey and French led St. Edward, which made 16 of 32 from the field, with 9 points each.
"Late in the game our weakside post players came to life," White said. "And Danny played real big on defense. We switched to the two-man press and got some steals. I thought we were right there all night. (Assistant coach) Gus (Domel) said at the beginning of the year we'd get 25 wins and he was right on. It's one at a time now."