Kilgast scores 32 in IC Catholic Prep's win over Aurora Christian
Before Tuesday's game against Aurora Christian, IC Catholic senior forward Kal Kilgast had a premonition he could be in store for a memorable performance.
He entered the Metro Suburban Blue Conference game with a career-high 24 points set last season.
"I just felt good, and I had a good day of school," Kilgast said.
Kilgast added to his good day with a prolific scoring effort, tallying a personal-best 32 points in a 67-56 home victory over Aurora Christian.
The 6-foot-3 Kilgast drilled 6 3-pointers to outshine a hot-shooting effort by Aurora Christian junior guard Cam Morel, who buried 7 3-pointers for 21 points. Kilgast saved the majority of his scoring for the second half, breaking open a tight game with 10 points in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth.
"Everything was going in, and it was a fun game and we gritted it out in the end," Kilgast said. "They were shooting the ball really well and it was a really important game for the conference. I'm either on or off shooting, but today I was on. (Morel) was playing really good. We tried to stop him. I just saw a lot of holes and got a lot of good looks."
The Knights (13-5, 4-1) stayed near the top of the standings thanks to a solid defensive effort in the fourth quarter, holding the Eagles to 8 points in the final 5 minutes.
IC Catholic coach T.J. Tyrrell credited Kilgast's strong effort and his team's defense for pulling out the key home conference win. The Eagles made 12 3-pointers and the Knights finished with 9 3s. Dominic Ciegotura finished with 14 points and Dean O'Brien had 12 for IC Catholic, while Brayden Hatch scored 14 for the Eagles.
"We all had high expectations for Kal, and he had very high expectations for himself, so he put on a lot of pressure coming into the season," Tyrrell said. "It's great to see the result of all his hard work in the offseason."
Even in the loss, Morel managed to put on a shooting clinic to keep the Eagles (13-5, 2-2) in the game. Morel canned four 3-pointers in the third quarter, including 2 treys within a 40-second span to give his team a 46-44 edge at the end of the quarter.
"I felt good and it was kind of coming to me and I kept shooting," Morel said. "When you got the touch, everyone was doing a good job getting me the ball. This is a really good IC Catholic team, and we're a young team, so if we play like this against other teams, we're going to do good."
Aurora Christian coach Dan Beebe said he was pleased how his team played considering their last game was on Dec. 30.
"Both teams played really well and it was a game of runs," Beebe said. "We came out and played well and shot well. It was overall a good high school basketball game."