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Benet comes back to beat York

It's not often that Benet's boys basketball team gets dominated on its home court.

When it happened in the first quarter on Tuesday, the Redwings made sure it didn't last long.

Leaning on its trademark defense, Benet rallied from an early double-digit deficit and stayed unbeaten with a 51-46 victory over York in Lisle.

The Redwings (6-0) fell behind 17-4 in the first quarter before responding with a 2-point defensive effort in the second quarter. Benet finally surged to its first lead of the game midway through the fourth quarter, and the defensive effort carried through to the final buzzer.

"We didn't play their personnel very well," said Benet forward James Dockery, who led all scorers with 17 points and grabbed 9 rebounds. "We were letting kids hit 3s and leaving the shooters open. In the second half we knew what we had to do, get out on the shooters. And we had to beat them on the boards."

Jack Nolan, who scored 8 of his 11 points in the fourth quarter, knocked down one of his three 3-pointers with 3:50 left in the game to give Benet its first lead of 42-41. After Dan Sobolewski's free throw tied it at 43, Nolan knocked down another 3 to push the Redwings into the lead to stay at 46-43.

York (5-2) managed only 3 points in the final two minutes, 2 points coming on a buzzer-beating putback by Nick Trapani, who made four 3-pointers while tallying a team-high 14 points.

"It was nice to see us get off to a good start, I'm really proud of our team," said Dukes coach Vince Doran. "The kids played super hard. There were some key possessions down the stretch that we'll hopefully learn from. Give them credit. They went real hard, and came up with a few more loose balls than us and got a few extra possessions that hurt us tonight."

York's 15-2 first-quarter burst - powered by three 3-pointers from Trapani - helped the Dukes to build a surprising 17-4 lead. Benet clamped down defensively while allowing the 2 second-quarter points, which helped narrow the halftime gap to 19-15.

"They came out and played well in the first quarter and really dominated the game," said Benet coach Gene Heidkamp. "We were able to get ourselves back in the game in the second quarter and then it was a dogfight the rest of the way. They're a very good team."

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