Westminster Christian 51, Chicago Christian 49

Danny Graves dug Westminster Christian out of a hole at the right time.

With 2:48 left in the fourth quarter, Westminster's leading scorer, senior Joel Benson, missed the front-end of a 1-and-1, leaving his team trailing visiting Chicago Christian 40-39 in the opening round of the Private School League boys basketball tournament.

However, Graves picked his teammate up seconds later after the Knights fumbled a pass on the perimeter.

The junior guard alertly grabbed the loose ball, drove the length of the floor, somehow sank an off-balance layup with his right hand and drew a foul.

Graves converted the free throw for a 42-40 Westminster lead, an advantage the Warriors didn't relinquish en route to a 51-49 victory in Elgin. The fourth-seeded Warriors (18-6) will travel to Melrose Park Wednesday night to play top seed Walther Lutheran in the semifinals.

"That was pretty much just luck," Graves said. "I just threw it up there and then hit the free throw, which helped a lot."

"Graves' layup was huge," Westminster coach Bruce Firchau said. "That was sweet; The old-fashioned three (point play). That got us over the hump."

Graves' key play ignited a 7-0 run, which Chicago Christian (15-9) aided by committing turnovers on its subsequent 2 possessions, miscues the Warriors converted into points each time.

Benson, who scored a game-high 24 points on 8-of-14 shooting to go with 8 rebounds, scored a basket in transition off the next turnover.

After the Knights threw the ball away again in transition, Westminster senior Cory Hodge spotted Benson going deep on the inbounds play and fed him a deep pass. Benson scored on a layup to give the Warriors a 46-40 lead with 1:39 to play.

"It was just short spurts all night, and their turnovers really helped us at the end," Firchau said. "They were out of sync there, and it sure helped us."

Hodge (6 points) sealed the victory by splitting a pair of free throws with 10.8 seconds to play to give Westminster a 51-47 lead. The Warriors sank 17 of 23 free throws in the game. The Knights shot 2 of 6 from the line.