All year long, Benet has been winning games with grit and guile substituting for substance at times.
Trailing by as many as 10 points in the third quarter against Champaign Central on Monday in the second semifinal of the Wheaton Warrenville South MLK Tournament, Benet scratched and clawed its way to a two-point lead late following a James Dockery triple.
However the problems the Maroons posed to get Benet in that 10-point hole, their senior duo of Noah Wells and Dominique Brize and a defense that forced timely miscues on Benet’s part prevailed in the end as Champaign Central emerged with a 61-52 victory.
Wells and Brize led the Maroons by combining for 42 points and nine three-pointers, none of which were bigger than Brize’s three-pointer from the left wing with 1:44 left in regulation that put the Maroons up for good at 51-50.
“(Wells and Brize) played really well. They were able to get the shots that they wanted to get and we had a ton of defensive breakdowns and those guys took advantage,” Benet coach Gene Heidkamp said. “I think they made seven or eight threes between the two of them and that really was the difference in the game.”
In a game whose first half saw the lead exchange hands 14 times, the 10-4 run Champaign Central went to end the half, turning a 24-23 Redwing lead into a 33-28 Maroon lead at halftime, shifted the momentum.
From there, the Maroons started the second half on a 11-6 spurt as Wells, who had a game-high 25, and Brize accounted for nine of the 11 points—all on three-pointers.
Undaunted, Benet (11-6) started getting some stops defensively while rallying behind Dockery, Cameron Graves and Jason Malonga to take its first lead since 24-23 when Dockery hit from the left corner for three with 4:48 left to give it a 50-48 lead.
Maroons head coach Sergio McClain, who played at Illinois from 1997 through 2001, called a pair of timeouts before the game’s next basket, Brize’s final triple with 1:44 left in the game, put his team back on top.
With Champaign Central up three at 53-50 with about one minute to play in the game, Luke Beesley’s blocking a Danny Sobolewski three-point attempt out of bounds and Jamal Stovall coming away with a steal at midcourt following a Redwing timeout proved to be the Redwings’ undoing.
“We were able to fight and battle back. We played better defense in that stretch (that got us a 50-48 lead) and that’s why we were able to get back into the game,” Heidkamp said. “We made some shots, but the last minute-and-a-half was just a real struggle for us. We turned the ball over a few times. … (We had) some tough fouls and some tough turnovers (at the end). The last minute-and-a-half didn’t go (like we wanted). We didn’t give ourselves a good chance in the last minute-and-a-half.”
Sobolewski and Graves led the Redwings with 13 points each while Dockery added 10.
Benet plays Wheaton Warrenville South in the third-place game at 6 p.m. Monday.
