Snell, Benet not kidding around against Wheaton North

Jacob Snell is getting more than his share of joking about switching from football to basketball at the next level.

After watching him play on Saturday, you can see why.

Snell scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as Benet beat Wheaton North 51-47 in the Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Shootout at Wheaton Warrenville South.

The 6-foot-4, 240-pound senior, a defensive lineman, is committed to play football at Miami of Ohio. Regardless of what any statline might read this basketball season, nothing's changing.

But he does kind of appreciate the kidding.

"It's great to be out here playing and get a good win like this," he said. "We came out with a lot of energy and kept it going through the whole game."

Benet (4-1) opened its biggest lead of 36-22 on a pair of Tyler Van Eekeren free throws midway through the third quarter. Wheaton North (4-2) finally started knocking down 3-point shots to get back in it, narrowing the margin to 48-47 on Ben Bonga's reverse layup with 50 seconds left in the game.

Matt Reid, who had 11 points and 7 rebounds, hit a pair of free throws to push Benet's lead to 50-47, then grabbed a defensive rebound on a game-tying 3-point attempt in the waning seconds. He split a pair of free throws with 4.2 seconds remaining to seal the victory.

Garrett Horner scored 15 points for Wheaton North while Emanuel Wilson added 10 points. Each had 2 of the Falcons' seven 3-pointers.

"For the first time this year I felt like we didn't have super-high energy the whole game," said Wheaton North coach Dave Brackmann. "Against a team like Benet that's so good and so disciplined, your energy has to be high."

Twitter: @kevin_schmit