St. Viator tops Conant 58-51 to take tourney

St. Viator seemed to be fighting a losing battle Friday night for the championship of its 32nd annual Thanksgiving boys basketball tournament.

But the Lions didn't stop battling and ended up winning their own title trophy for the first time since 2003 with a 58-51 victory over Conant at Cahill Gym in Arlington Heights.

"It's a big win for us - a huge upset," said Viator junior Richard McLoughlin of beating the two-time defending Mid-Suburban League champs.

"We usually don't fare well against Conant (4 straight losses)," said Viator junior point guard Alan Aboona. "Tonight we stayed tough and played good defense."

A 3-pointer by McLoughlin (12 points, rebounds) off a feed from Aboona (17 points, 3 assists) put Viator ahead 53-51 with 58 seconds left.

The Lions only led for 11/2 minutes and overcame deficits of 17-4 after a quarter, 43-34 late in the third and 47-39 with 6:09 to play for their first 3-0 start since 2003.

"They're battlers," said Viator coach Joe Majkowski. "If the offense isn't going they're still going to play defense as hard as they can."

Conant (2-1) looked as if it would overcome foul trouble that limited senior Tony Rizzo's first-half minutes to five. Cameron Leavitt (17 points) and Tim Lomas (12 points, 8 rebounds) picked up the scoring slack but fouled out with 3:14 and 1:56 respectively.

Eight of Conant's 24 turnovers that Viator turned into 24 points came in the fourth quarter.

"A lot of that was St. Viator playing mentally and physically tough," Conant coach Tom McCormack said after his team was 15-for-19 on free throws to 22-for-32 by Viator. "I don't think we were quite as mentally and physically tough to win."

The hard work of Dan Faerber and Jack Etchingham epitomized Viator's comeback to a 50-49 lead on Aboona's drive at 1:14. Rizzo's 2 free throws five seconds later put Conant ahead, but when Aboona was double-teamed off a screen he found McLoughlin on the left wing from 23 feet.

"I thought for sure it was short," McLoughlin said. "I charged after it and when it went in - I was shocked."

Bryce Hensley (12 points) made a free throw and Brendan King was 4-for-4 in the final 25 seconds for Viator.

"We've stressed all year finishing games at the end," Aboona said of going 3-10 last year with a margin of 8 points or less. "This year we've really focused on that and conditioned for that."