Geneva rolls to 3rd straight Thanksgiving title

Geneva boys basketball coach Phil Ralston didn't want to mince words after his Vikings blew out Crystal Lake Central 64-31 in the 8th annual Tigers Thanksgiving Tournament championship that his squad looked to be in midseason form already just 4 games into the season.

But it was a thought too good to pass up on Saturday after the Vikings moved to 4-0 and posted their third-consecutive Thanksgiving title in thorough fashion, even with some key players missing due to injury.

The Vikings, without point guard Pace Temple, 6-foot 8 forward Mike Landi and Chandler Fuzak, used a 19-2 second quarter to expand a 4-point opening quarter lead to 21 at halftime. The lead reached its summit at 34 late in the fourth as 18 Vikings saw action and 14 sank 1 shot.

Buffalo-commit Nate Navigato, who scored a game-high 21 in 3 quarters of action, broke it open nailing 3 three-pointers bridging the first and second quarters, as the 6-foot 7 forward went 9 of 14 from the field, 3 for 6 from 3-point range, which helped Geneva shoot a 58.3 percent clip on 28 for 48 shooting. Navigato and Bennett Fuzak were also named to the CL Central all-tournament team.

"We have a lot more to work on but I don't want to pretend like everything was perfect in this game but I saw a lot of nice stuff out these kids," Ralston said. "I liked the fire out of our kids today, they came out with a lot of fire in this game. You could tell how badly they wanted to win this game. For a program that's won 3 or 4 Thanksgiving tournaments in 110 years, now we've won three in-a-row ... this is a special achievement."

Credit the Geneva defense for almost holding Central (3-1) to nothing in the second quarter, as center Ian Koch nailed a jumper from the key just as time expired at the half to ruin the party.

But for a second there it looked as if Navigato was shooting into Crystal Lake's Main Beach as a pump fake deep behind the three-point line in the left wing confused 2 Tigers defenders, which led to his wide open 23-footer that made it 26-11 with 5:10 left. CLC went scoreless for nearly 10 minutes after it last led 11-10 with 1:30 left in the first. Geneva outscored the Tigers 24-2 on 7 of 13 shooting in the second.

"I came off the ball screen and I pump faked someone and they both laid off of me and I was just like, 'all right, that's fine with me, I'll shoot this three and make it,'" said Navigato, who had 6 rebounds and 3 steals.

"I thought we ran our offense really well, ran our sets really well. We just needed to put the ball in the hole and we have good enough shooters around to do that."

Fuzak scored 8 points while Loudon Vollbrecht and Zach Samples each poured in 6. The Vikes capitalized off 17 Central turnovers and scored 28 points in the paint.

Koch led Central with 10 points and 4 rebounds. Even Tigers coach Rich Czeslawski gave the Vikings his blessing as he addressed the team in the huddle after the game while presenting the tournament trophy.

"Even if we had played an absolute perfect game they still probably beat us. That team is special. That's a team that as a coach, those are the years you wait for. They got everything," said Czeslawski. "There's not much you can do when they're clicking and they were clicking in the second quarter."

"Rich is not just a great coach, he's a great friend," Ralston said. "He's probably one of the best representations of coaching in basketball in the state of Illinois."