Wheaton Academy closes in on MSC Red title

Unfinished business remains, but on Wednesday Wheaton Academy's boys basketball team took a large step toward the Metro Suburban Red title.

Avenging a prior road loss, the Warriors beat Timothy Christian 61-53 at the Warrior Dome in West Chicago.

Gaining a one-game lead over the Trojans and a half-game on Ridgewood, Wheaton Academy (17-6, 9-2) can win the title outright by defeating Elmwood Park on Friday. Defending Metro Suburban Red champion Timothy Christian (17-10, 8-3) remains in the running hosting Guerin. Ridgewood ended its MSC Red campaign at 9-3.

"The job isn't finished, we don't want to have a share, we want to have the outright championship," said Warriors junior guard Tobi Sonuga, who scored 9 points with 3 assists. "So there's still work to be done, but this is definitely huge for us."

Wheaton Academy, which shared the 2018 MSC Blue title with Riverside-Brookfield, gained momentum late in the first half then sealed the deal on 14-of-20 second-half shooting.

"We were playing hard, we were doing a lot of good things, we just weren't getting great shots, we weren't really controlling it on the offensive side," said Warriors coach Steve Thonn. "So at halftime we just talked about, let's do a better job controlling and executing what we do, get batter shots."

Max Scharnowski, Gerald Blackmon and Marcus Bult, who scored a game-high 18 points, keyed a 7-0 run to end the first half leading 21-19.

"I feel like we just couldn't hit shots, that's what it came down to," said Trojans guard Matt Owens, who scored 13 points while teammates Josh Harris and Jack Baldridge scored 14 apiece. "We executed fairly well, and I feel like they were prepared for us. They knew all our plays, they knew every type of defense."

Timothy Christian coach Scott Plaisier identified a key spot late in the third quarter. Harris hit a 3 and stole the ball back. Owens made a free throw to cut the Warriors' lead to 35-33. A.J. Vos stole the ball again and Timothy took time out. Out of the timeout a 3-point shot just missed.

"If that one goes in who knows, because that would have put us up," Plaisier said. "That one kind of rattles out and they go on a little run and we go eight (possessions) empty in a row."

Jack Dykema, Bult and Max Scharnowski, who scored 11 points with 8 rebounds, built a 10-2 run to start the fourth quarter. Timothy first pressed then fouled to get back into it. Though Baldridge and Owens led a 20-point quarter, Wheaton Academy topped that with 26. Dykema scored his 10 points in the quarter, icing victory on three straight press-breaking layups.

"We finally started to hit shots," Bult said, "and I think just seeing two or three 3-pointers go in gave us confidence as a team to finish it out."