St. Francis rallies to beat Montini
The fact that St. Francis and Montini no longer play in the same conference after decades together meant diddly to the boys on the basketball court Saturday in Wheaton.
"I think it's still dramatic," said 6-foot-7 St. Francis junior Bryce Walker. "Montini's still a rival even if we're not in the same conference, we always want to beat our rival."
Recovering from an early track meet it was losing, St. Francis rallied to win the nonconference game 62-55 at Spyglass Athletic Center.
"The main thing is just make it hard for somebody, and we were making it easy, we weren't doing much," Spartans coach Erin Dwyer said of the early defense. "And then I thought offensively for us, we only had 5 turnovers in the second half. Our number one thing offensively is just to take care of the ball."
St. Francis (8-16) trailed the Broncos three full quarters and early in the fourth until, during a 15-0 run, freshman Sebastian Miller scored on a backdoor layup off Walker's inbounds pass from the opposite sideline for a 45-43 lead. Dwyer borrowed that play from Wheaton Warrenville South coach Mike Healy.
"A lot of our plays are timing, and it's just that connection of when he's faking and when he's going, and when I know to pass," said Walker, who registered 8 points, 7 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.
Robert Nocek scored on a putback and that timing emerged again, Miller hitting Mike Cascella for a backdoor layup. Ball reversal got Cascella a 3 from the left wing for a 52-43 St. Francis lead with five minutes left.
Montini (7-15) countered behind a 3 from Adrian Ashford and a microburst from 21-point scorer Kai Evans to pull within 56-55 with 1:57 to play. Walker scored inside on a goaltended basket, then drew an offensive foul on defense. The Spartans finished their 23-point fourth quarter with a Miller drive and two Cascella free throws.
Cascella scored 19 points, Miller 13 and Nocek scored 12 with 9 rebounds.
"This is the biggest win in our season right now," Walker said.
Urged by coach Bob Lozano to "push it," Montini raced to a 22-15 lead after one quarter, led by Evans and Julian Gatewood, with Nick Bucaro grabbing five rebounds.
"If we get ball up the floor we can finish. And then we have to play defense. We have lapses. We can't play defense for four quarters," said Lozano, calling it a matter of inexperience.
Montini led 31-24 at halftime and held three separate 9-point leads in the first three quarters. In an effort to slow the scoring, St. Francis senior guard Sean Conley came off the bench in face-guarding mode against Gatewood. He limited the Broncos junior to 6 second-half points after Gatewood scored 13 in the first.
"I got a lot of help from my teammates calling out screens," Conley said. "I knew where he was, where the screens were coming. And they helped me out a little bit if I got stuck, but it was just a lot of communication, a lot of help from my teammates."