Benet stays focused on first
Friday night might have screamed retro, but Benet's boys basketball team kept current goals firmly in its grasp.
Playing in front of a packed house in the Lisle school's historic Alumni Gymnasium - and wearing old-school uniforms to match - the Redwings held off feisty Marian Central Catholic 56-48 to stay in a first-place tie in the East Suburban Catholic Conference with one game to play.
Benet and Marian Catholic, which handed the Redwings (24-3, 7-1) their lone ESCC loss in overtime on Dec. 18, both play their conference finales Wednesday at home. Benet plays Carmel while Marian Catholic faces Nazareth.
"It's such a good conference," said Benet senior James Dockery. "We knew we'd have to grind it out tonight. There's no team that's going to be a blowout in this conference, but it was fun tonight."
Benet appeared ready to run away from the Hurricanes when Dockery scored coming out of halftime to put the Redwings ahead 32-14. Marian Central (16-8, 3-5), however, answered with a 20-6 run that kept it within striking distance the rest of the game.
Thomas Kaufmann scored 12 of his 14 points to spark the rally that sliced the deficit to 38-34. Benet scored the first 7 points of the fourth quarter to rebuild a 15-point lead but Marian Central's Adam Pischke, who scored a game-high 26 points, answered with 9 straight points to narrow the deficit to 49-43 with just over a minute to play.
Benet closed the game with 7-of-10 free-throw shooting to keep its distance.
"We had to keep our composure," said Benet senior Jason Malonga. "We couldn't let it get to us too much. We had to keep playing our game."
In another balanced effort for the Redwings, Dockery led with 20 points while Malonga scored 16 points and Jack Nolan and Dan Sobolewski tallied 9 points apiece.
"We had to put ourselves in a position to play on Wednesday (for a shot at the ESCC title), and we accomplished that," said Redwings coach Gene Heidkamp. "And we did it in a great environment, so overall it was a great night for us."
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