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St. Viator takes it to Marmion

With the Class 3A boys basketball assignments due to be announced Friday by the IHSA, it was time Tuesday for St. Viator to pull out a measuring stick against a possible opponent.

There was plenty of room left on the ruler as the Lions used a running clock and rolled past Marmion 62-38 in a nonconference game in Arlington Heights.

It was just the fourth game of the year for the Lions (8-1) against a 3A opponent, three of which have ended with running clock in the fourth quarter. St. Viator, which competed in Class 4A last season, moved back to Class 3A this season due to the IHSA success factor.

"It still doesn't matter to us," said Viator coach Quin Hayes, whose Lions are 4-0 against Class 3A teams with an average margin of victory of 23.5 points against those opponents.

"We have to play to our level of talent and the score will take care of itself."

Jeremiah Hernandez had another huge game for the Lions. The Kent State commit finished with 25 points, 21 of which came in the first half.

"Coming off the big win, we were kind of feeling ourselves a little bit," said Hernandez, who had a 36-point output against Class 4A power Oswego East last Saturday.

"We turned the ball over in the first half, but we forced turnovers on them as well and stopped them from scoring as well."

Marmion (5-7) came out firing on all cylinders as the Cadets nailed their first 4 shots and led 9-4 with 5:55 left in the first quarter on a basket by Carlos Liz.

St. Viator turned up the jets. The Lions scored the next 12 points on their way to a 16-2 run with Connor Kuchera scoring 9 of those points.

Kuchera, who missed the first part of the season with an injury, would finish with a season-high 16 points.

"It feels great to be back out here," Kuchera said. "It is tough missing the first two weeks. I knew I had to be aggressive and get some assists."

The Lions struggled with a very invigorated Marmion team that forced 10 St. Viator turnovers in the first half. Despite that, St. Viator still led 41-22 at the half.

I wasn't happy about that at all," said Hayes about his team's uneven play in the first half.

"It is something that we addressed at halftime. We just wanted our guys to understand that we have to come out and play a certain way each night."

Hayes made sure that his Lions got that message at halftime.

Hernandez and Trey Calvin pressured the Cadets, with Marmion turning the ball over 8 times in the third quarter and scoring just 4 points.

Calvin (10 points) also began to attack the basket and 6-foot-7 Michael Huene (5 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks) did the dirty work on both ends of the court as the Lions would score 20 points in the quarter. They opened up a 61-26 lead after three quarters and triggered the running clock for the final period.

"We do play with energy, we just don't have much depth right now," said Marmion coach Tony Young, who played his high school basketball at Schaumburg.

"We have a couple guys just coming back from injuries. In the midst of growing and trying to learn and understand a new system, we just a have some untimely injuries. We are just trying to fight right now."

Thomas Surges led Marmion with 12 points while Ryan McMahon, Jonathon Reid and Sean Kavanaugh each had 6 points.

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