St. Joseph 50, Benet 46
School may not be back in session until Monday, but Benet's boys basketball team still learned something about itself Friday night.
In the end, though, the Redwings had to settle for a moral victory against perennial power St. Joseph.
Foiled in many late opportunities, Benet fell 50-46 in its East Suburban Catholic Conference showdown against the visiting Chargers.
"We really talked about confidence for this game," said Benet guard Brian Gaughan. "If you don't believe you can beat Joe's, you're not going to do very well against them."
An 8-2 run rallied the Chargers (11-3, 3-1) to a 47-45 lead on David Dixon's free throws with 4:54 left. St. Joseph got the ball back and pulled it out, hoping to force the Redwings out of their effective zone defense.
Benet instead trapped the Chargers, getting a turnover and two trips to the free-throw line. The Redwings (5-7, 1-3) came away with only 1 point, however, when Ryan Haggerty split two free throws with 2:01 left.
Benet's Alex Gasick snared the offensive rebound, but misses by Gaughan and Haggerty kept the Redwings trailing at 47-46.
St. Joseph then missed the front end of a 1-and-1. At the other end a nice baseline jumper by Gaughan went in and out of the basket. Diamond Taylor converted a pair of free throws to boost the Chargers' lead to 49-46 with 21.8 seconds left.
Haggerty missed a 3-pointer but the ball bounded to Gaughan, who missed an off-balance 3-point attempt. Dixon hit the second of two free throws with 1.8 seconds left to put the final at 50-46.
The Chargers held Benet scoreless for the final 2:01.
"We just had to pull it out at the defensive end," said Taylor, who joined Dixon with a game-high 15 points.
Benet stunted the Chargers' potent offense with numerous defensive looks. Even though the Redwings rarely led, they never trailed by more than 6 points.
St. Joseph, despite missing 6-foot-8 Louis Green for much of the game because of foul trouble, still dominated the boards and had 19 offensive rebounds.
Leading 25-24 at the half, Benet claimed a 41-39 lead heading to the fourth quarter on a Gaughan layup. Joe Meyerhoff scored at the start of the fourth to give Benet its biggest lead at 43-39.
Gaughan and Haggerty each scored 13 points. Meyerhoff added 12.
"It's just a matter right now of believing you can do it," said Benet coach Marty Gaughan. "Against a quality team that was probably the best game we've played so far this year."