St. Francis 48, St. Edward 42
St. Francis senior Bob Vonderhaar will never forget his final trip to St. Edward.
With his Spartans clinging to a 43-41 lead with 1:07 remaining in regulation, the 6-foot-6 Vonderhaar caught a pass in the left corner, faked to his right, blew past his defender to the left, drove the baseline unobstructed and slammed home a one-handed tomahawk dunk that gave St. Francis a 4-point cushion.
St. Edward guard Josh Dix split 2 free throws seconds later, then hustled to get his own rebound.
However St. Edward couldn't cash in on 2 shots during that possession, including a decent 3-point look for leading scorer Brett Manning that could have tied the game with 25 seconds left.
The ball caromed out of bounds off the Green Wave and the Spartans went on to sink 3 of 4 free throws in the final 18 seconds to seal a hard-fought, 48-42 victory in the Suburban Catholic, a triumph that will be remembered for Vonderhaar's stunning slam.
"I probably wouldn't have done it unless it was that easy -- I didn't have anyone in front of me," said Vonderhaar, who finished with a game-best 22 points on 8-of-17 shooting. "I was (dunking) all day in practice, and I was feeling good tonight and thought I could get it down."
Said Spartans coach Shawn Healy: "I was shocked. It was a 2-point game, so I was like, 'That better go in.' "
Like the Green Wave (7-15, 1-11), the Spartans (13-7, 8-2) needed every high-percentage shot they could manage.
St. Francis shot 3 of 16 in the first quarter en route to a 33 percent performance from the field (15 of 45). St. Edward fared only slightly better. The Wave connected on 16 of their 45 shots (36 percent).
"We had opportunities at the end to tie it two or three times and just couldn't hit the shots," St. Edward coach Keith Chuipek said. "We spent probably a half an hour on the offense this week. It might have showed tonight because we weren't knocking down the shots. That was our thing tonight -- we had really good looks but we just weren't making shots."
St. Francis led 10-8 after one quarter and 25-19 at the half, but St. Edward outscored the Spartans 13-8 in the third quarter. The Wave tied the game at 32 with 1:18 left in the period when Riley Coleman came off a screen to splash an open 3-pointer from the top of the arc.
However, the Spartans opened the final period with a 3-pointer from Jack Purdom followed by an easy bucket in the paint by Vonderhaar, who was set up by a pretty feed from junior guard David Palash.
Improving St. Edward pulled within a bucket on four occasions in the fourth quarter, the last at 43-41 with 1:25 to play on Steve Martin's layup. Martin scored 11 of his team-high 14 points in the second half, when he also grabbed 9 of his 10 rebounds
"I'd been shooting the ball a lot (from the outside), then I remembered in the first game we played them they didn't really have an inside stopper," Martin said, "so I just went inside the rest of the game."