St. Viator comeback halts Hersey

St. Viator boys basketball coach Quin Hayes puts his team through different drills during practice.

One simulates a situation in which the Lions are trailing by 15 to 20 points, the idea being no deficit is too large.

Practice was made perfect in the host Lions' 64-60 win over rival Hersey on Monday night at the Cahill Gym in Arlington Heights.

"We're down 36-21 at halftime," Hayes said. "Hersey is shooting very well (14-of-22, 63 percent) going into halftime and we've also committed 8 turnovers. We just couldn't let that happen in the second half, too."

Hersey guard Joe Coffaro was filling up the box score, with 19 of his 26 points in the first half to go along with 5 steals.

"He (Coffaro) got them going and they were finding all different ways to score," Hayes added. "We had to put more pressure on their offense."

Hayes then called on defensive specialist Kevin Murphy, Miles McDonnell and Danny Walsh to cool off the Huskies.

Hersey (6-10) opened a 16-point lead (42-26) with 4:43 in the third period following a putback basket by Kenneth Hasley.

Walsh, who ended up with 22 points, scored 4 points as did Kyle Hammarlund in a 12-5 run that saw the Lions trail 47-38 going into the fourth quarter.

"We were just getting out-hustled in the first half and part of the third quarter," Murphy said. "We had to work on ball denial and force some turnovers. I think the whole team just turned it up on defense in the second half. We knew if the defense got going, it would lead to offense."

The Huskies' shooting started to tail off, as they made 5 of 12 shots in the third quarter and committed 5 turnovers. Hersey still finishied with a respectable 23-of-42 shooting (54 percent).

St. Viator was 7-of-22 shooting in the first half and finished 22-of-52 (42 percent).

The Lions (11-3) committed just 2 turnovers in the second half to the Huskies' 10.

"The end of the third quarter was key for us," said Hersey coach Steve Messer. "We were hoping to go into the fourth quarter with a double-digit lead instead of 9."

Hersey kept its 9-point lead at 55-46 following 2 free throws by Coffaro with 5:16 left in the game.

Jake Stepuszek (18 points, 3 steals) started an 11-0 rally with 2 free throws and 2 baskets to Viator get back in the game.

Walsh hit a 3-point basket to give the Lions a 57-55 lead with 2:49 left. It was their first lead since the latter stages of the first quarter.

The Huskies forged ahead for the last time at 60-59 when Kevin Starr (10 points) scored on an assist from Zach Cooper with 1:09 left.

Matt Trimberger (9 points) drove the lane and scored on a layup with 46 seconds to give the Lions the lead for good at 61-60.

Stepuszek hit 2 free throws and Murphy added one to finish the scoring.

"I saw the baseline open up on that drive to the basket," Trimberger said. "My teammates did a great job clearing that out for me. We just knew that we could play down the stretch with composure. Jack and Danny scored some big baskets for us and Murphy played some really great defense."

"One of the keys to the second half was to get defensive stops," Hayes said. "And then to pick up some turnovers. Down 16 points, we fought through some adversity and we didn't give up."

"This has been the story of our season," Messer said. "This game, though, was the best we played for the longest period of time against a very good team. We made some mistakes late in the game with some bad passes and turnovers (5) down the stretch. We've been making some progress but we're not there yet."