Westminster hangs on for win
Having three fouls to give in the final 18 seconds of overtime Friday night proved vital to the Westminster Christian boys basketball team.
But one mistake nearly cost the Warriors with 1 second left before escaping with a 45-44 overtime victory over Immaculate Conception at the Westminster Christian Thanksgiving Classic.
"We almost gave it away," Westminster coach Bruce Firchau said.
The Warriors' Ben Carani hit 1 of 2 free throws with 18 seconds left to break a 44-44 tie. Westminster (3-0) only committed three fouls in the second half and overtime, giving the Warriors the opportunity to foul three times without sending the Knights (2-1) to the free-throw line. Westminster fouled twice and 6.2 seconds remained. Kevin Nutley missed a shot, but Michael Randick grabbed the offensive rebound. He was fouled before he could get off a shot with 1 second left, giving IC the ball under its own basket.
After a timeout, the Knights couldn't get the ball in and had to call another timeout. This time the Warriors' defense forced a 5-second violation. Westminster needed to get the ball in bounds and threw a long pass over the IC defense, but no one touched the ball before it went out of bounds over the other end line.
The Knights got one more chance from under their basket, but a lob to Demitrius Movley wasn't open. The ball went to Matt McMahon, who missed an off-balance 3-point attempt.
"We didn't get what we were looking for on any of them," said Knights assistant coach, T.J. Tyrrell, who was leading the team for Darren Howard, also the school's athletics director who was in Champaign for the Knights' Class 2A state-championship football game. "We ran three different plays to get open and none of them worked."
"I should have parked one of our players deep (on the Warriors' in-bounds play)," Firchau said. "That was my fault. That won't happen again."
The game went back and forth throughout. The Knights led 13-12 after the first quarter. Westminster took a 25-24 lead into haltime and the game was tied, 31-31, after three quarters and 42-42 after regulation.
Matt Vesey led IC with a game-high 13 points and 14 rebounds. Mobley finished with 12 points and 9 rebounds.
Ryan Beachler's 10 points led the Warriors. Ian Dutcher added 12 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks.