Lisle takes early lead, ends St. Edward's season

Lisle boys basketball coach Mark LaScala implored his team to fight harder for offensive rebounds in the postseason.

Senior Demetrius King Jr. took his words to heart.

The 5-foot-11 guard grabbed 2 of his 7 rebounds during a 13-2 second-quarter run he helped fuel with putbacks. He finished with a game-best 21 points in a 59-41 victory in Monday's Class 2A regional opener over No. 10 St. Edward.

"Coach put a big emphasis on how hard we should crash the glass and attack every rebound that comes off the rim," King said. "These past couple of games I felt I wasn't doing that very well so I felt like I had to step up."

No. 5 Lisle (18-13) advances to a Wednesday regional semifinal against No. 3 Wheaton Academy (20-10).

The Lions never trailed. They outscored the Green Wave 15-6 in each of the first two quarters with St. Edward leading scorer Erik Hill saddled with early foul trouble. Lisle led 41-23 heading to the fourth quarter.

"We just wanted to do what we do, which is play good half-court defense," LaScala said. "We knew (Hill) is a really good player. He got a little foul trouble and that really slowed down their start, I think. Without him on the floor, they are down their big offense of weapon. When the kids saw him out of the game they wanted to make hay on the offensive end. We did a good job running our stuff and moving the ball."

Hill and Sebastian Oquendo each finished with 11 points for the Green Wave, who twice cut the deficit to 14 points in the fourth quarter.

"We couldn't really get anything going on offense," Hill said. "We were breaking down a lot. Coach was keeping us all together though, so that was good. We ended up putting a fight in the last quarter. It was kind of a problem this whole year. We couldn't put four quarters together. Hopefully, we can fix that problem next year and we'll see what happens."

The loss marked the end of a long, frustrating year for injury riddled St. Edward (9-23). The Green Wave enjoyed exactly one game with its top two scorers on the floor at the same time. Otherwise, leading scorer Hill missed the first half of the season. Second-leading scorer J.P. McGuire was lost for the campaign in late December.

Hill returns along with Jackson Godfrey, among others. Coach Andy Zielinski also played two sophomore guards and two freshmen Monday.

"We had a really inexperienced, young lineup," Zielinski said, "but the lower levels are doing well and we should be better the next couple of years."

Senior Raymond Bandzoumouna added 11 points and junior guard Cal Payne added 10 points for the Lions.