Marmion rolls over Montini

Seeing their boys basketball team trail Marmion big, Montini's male-dominated student cheering section broke out an old standard.

“Let's play football!” they chanted.

Either way, turnovers are key. On the basketball court Friday the visiting Cadets forced Montini into 22 of them through three quarters, leading to Marmion's 53-33 Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division victory in Lombard.

“We've been preaching in practice in the last couple games of having some more balance offensively,” said Marmion coach Ryan Paradise. “And when we're able to play pressure defense like we did tonight, when we are in the passing lanes, we are disrupting the dribble, it makes it a lot easier for us to get out and run.”

Montini (1-4, 0-3) never led and tied once, 4-4 on Rich Bodee's fast-break bucket three minutes into the game. Four Broncos turnovers later, Marmion (4-4, 3-0) led 13-4.

“I think our point guards, including me, couldn't really get into the offense, and we were, like, flustered. We didn't really relax enough to get us under control,” said Montini's Jim Miller, who led the Broncos with 7 points.

It didn't get better for Montini until it closed the game on a 14-2 run. Mark Berdelle's bucket with 3:02 left was the Cadets' sole scoring in the last 10:26.

Marmion didn't need to pile on. It led 53-19 with 2:34 left in the third quarter.

The Cadets outscored Montini 29-10 in the second quarter. Alex Theisen came up with 3 steals, Berdelle and Ryan Glasgow owned the boards.

“We worked on some 2-3 (zone) offense against them so we would get some easy shots. We just came out and played defense and got past them,” said Theisen, who scored 9 points.

Junior Peter Stefanski scored all 14 of his points in the second quarter, canning four 3-pointers including 2 straight one from the right corner, one from the left. Berdelle followed Stefanski with 13 points.

“It's the minor breakdowns,” Montini coach Brian Opoka said, “and the maturation of a team that, at times, has one little gap. All of a sudden, that's the guy that gets caught against us. That's just a learning process. We're going to shore that up.”