St. Charles East overcomes sluggish start, beats Hampshire
It was admittedly a little rough around the edges at times but St. Charles East opened its 60th annual Ron Johnson Thanksgiving Basketball Tournament with a victory Monday night.
Seniors Nate Ortiz, Mark Musial and Cody Mitchell combined for 39 points as the Saints (1-0) outlasted Hampshire 53-40 during both teams' season debut in St. Charles.
"The positive is it's only the first game," said Saints coach Patrick Woods, whose team misfired on 13 of its first 15 field-goal attempts while falling behind 11-4 after the first quarter.
"It's kind of what we expected with some first-game jitters. We'll get better. Today was just a start."
St. Charles East outscored Hampshire 15-7 in the second quarter to grab a 19-18 halftime advantage.
Junior Chase Monkemeyer (7 points, 5 rebounds) and sophomore Tommy Craven (3 points, 2 steals, 2 assists) provided a much-needed spark as the Saints rallied from a 14-4 deficit with 6:22 remaining in the first half.
"We needed it," said Woods. "As I told them at halftime, we only have two guys who played a lot of minutes (last year) - Cody (Mitchell) and Nate (Ortiz)."
Ortiz, who was held to 3 first-half points, found his shooting touch early in the second half. The 6-foot-3 guard drained a 3-pointer to break a 19-19 tie, putting the Saints in the lead to stay at 22-19 in the opening minute of the third quarter.
"The first game isn't going to be perfect - we know that," said Ortiz, who had 8 of the Saints' 16 third-quarter points. "We're a young team with only four seniors. Going in we had something to prove but maybe it looked like we were a little too excited about it.
"We were rushing some shots on offense and not getting in the flow. That will come with time."
Winners of just 5 games last season, the Whip-Purs stayed within striking distance until the final minute thanks in large part to a 14-point, 14-rebound performance from 6-3 senior guard Justin Anderson and 10 points off the bench from senior forward J.D. Shaw.
Shaw's strong move inside pulled Hampshire to within 38-36 with 4:18 left before Luke Matheny found Musial for a wide-open 3-pointer to extend the Saints' lead to 41-36.
From there, the Saints canned all 10 of their free-throw attempts in the last 2 ½ minutes.
"That's the key," said Woods, whose team made 17 of 21 foul shots, including 11 of 12 in the fourth quarter.
"They hit 17 free throws to our five," said Hampshire coach Ben Whitehouse. "That's the ballgame right there. They closed it out."
Hampshire won the rebounding battle, 43-35, while junior Collin Woods added 7 points, 6 rebounds and a pair of blocked shots.
"We came here to challenge ourselves - to get us ready for conference play," said Whitehouse. "We were happy with a lot of things we did. We'll be back at it tomorrow against Proviso (East)."
The Saints face South Elgin (1-0) Wednesday night.
"We're just going to get better," said Woods. "We've got to get better by Wednesday."