St. Charles East thumps Riverside-Brookfield

Statement game, statement made.

Spillover parking and gaudy records served notice that despite being held on the final day of the boys basketball regular season, St. Charles East at Riverside-Brookfield was a sectional-style game.

The Saints unleashed one of their 3-point barrages against the team seeded first at the Class 4A Morton sectional and won 76-67 in Riverside, a nonconference game that wasn't that close.

"A big statement," suggested St. Charles East senior point guard Cole Gentry, who tied teammate Mick Vyzral and R-B's Sam Johnson for game honors with 23 points. Saints center Jack Bronec hit 10-foot baseline jumpers for 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the floor.

"The environment was big, a tough environment," Gentry said. "They had a great crowd tonight. We knew they'd have a good crowd and it's going to be a lot like that next week for regionals, so we really wanted to focus and start well.

"In these big games, especially on the road the start's huge, so we knew we had to start well. We kind of took the crowd of it early, I thought."

Coach Patrick Woods, whose Saints improved to 23-3, sought to limit the dribble penetration of Bulldogs point guard Daniko Jackson, stopping him from dishing to the 6-foot-7 duo of Johnson and Mark Smith.

Also, pressure Johnson's 3-point attempts. The Bulldogs forward got rolling late but St. Charles East's Evan DiLeonardi held him scoreless the first quarter. Overall, defensive pressure forced 17 Bulldogs turnovers.

"We were hoping our defense would withstand their relentless attack on the offensive end and I thought we did that early," Woods said. "Got a little ugly as of late, but I was happy with the way we played for 32 minutes."

Consecutive 3s by Kevin Fitzgerald gave an 11-10 lead to R-B (24-3). It also lit a fire under St. Charles East, Vyzral said.

"It was like an eye-opener," said the 6-5 senior forward, who made six 3-pointers and grabbed 10 rebounds "It was a close game early and we didn't drive an hour and a half down here - or up here, whatever - to lose this game."

Though St. Charles East led 21-19 after one quarter, guard Jake Asquini was 0-for-5 from 3-point land. No matter. In the second quarter the senior pumped in 3 straight, his last from a good 25 feet out, part of 11-of-22 first-half 3-point shooting that earned East a 50-34 halftime lead.

"The best way for him to get out of a slump is just for him to keep shooting, he's such a good shooter," Vyzral said.

Gentry scored 11 of his team's 15 third-quarter points as St. Charles East went up 65-43. He scored the Saints' last bucket for a 76-52 lead with 3:50 left in the game, driving in with his left hand, floating under the rim through a crowd, and switching hands to loft the ball high off the backboard, down and in to oohs and aahs from the fans.

Woods called this game a dress rehearsal. Let the playoffs begin.

"We wanted to play teams like this on the end to help prepare us for next week," Woods said. "If we do what we did tonight I think we'll be in good shape next week."