Geneva's unusual day ends with spot in semis

A horrific car accident had Geneva wondering if they would ever get to DeKalb's 81st annual Chuck Dayton tournament Tuesday, then a record amount of fouls by North Grand had them wondering if they would ever leave.

Geneva got to DeKalb an hour late for its game Tuesday morning, caught behind an 18-car accident on Rt. 38.

Then North Grand sent the Vikings to the line 67 times, including 40 in the fourth quarter, before the clock finally ticked to 0:00 in Geneva's 96-67 victory.

Rob Trauscher led the parade to the free-throw line, sinking all 16 of his attempts. The 67 attempts is the third most in state history, and the 53 made free throws is second.

"That was the longest fourth quarter I've ever been part of," Tauscher said. "I was hoping they would keep fouling me. I like going to the free-throw line."

Geneva (11-1) advances to the semifinals at 7 p.m. Friday against Rockford Jefferson. But the win took a backset to the accident.

The Vikings were about five minutes behind the pileup. They had two busses, one with the cheerleaders, and waited 45 minutes before they could move again.

"Thank God we were not involved in that," Geneva coach Phil Ralston said. ""That's just tragic to hear (of the fatalities). My heart goes out to those families that were involved in that accident. That puts into perspective this game doesn't mean a heck of a lot. At first when sitting on the bus for 40 minutes you are kind of getting anxious, but when we heard that (there were fatalities) it was 'OK, however long it needs to take, we'll sit tight."

Among other things, the delay enabled the past, present and future of D'Amico basketball brothers to take turns shooting on the DeKalb floor. Oldest brother Brandon and seventh grader Jason fired away while everyone was waiting for Geneva to get there, then the present - Jeremy - really started putting the ball through the hoop.

D'Amico scored a career-high 34 points, hitting 18 of 23 free throws. That topped an earlier game this season when he scored 33 points and made 17 of 26 free throws against Glenbard South.

The 6-foot-6 senior really caught fire in the first half, scoring Geneva's final 17 points of the first half. The delay getting to DeKalb didn't hurt the Vikings at the start, as they jumped to a 10-0 lead.

"It was distracting when it happened but once we got going again, we still had 10 minutes to the school, everyone got calmed down and refocused," Tauscher said.

North Grand (8-4) was unhappy with the officiating most of the game. An assistant coach picked up a technical foul in the third quarter and five players fouled out.

With about six minutes left in the fourth quarter, they began fouling every time Geneva touched the ball. That enabled the Vikings to break the 81-year-old tournament record for free throw attempts.

The Vikings made 35 of 40 attempts in the fourth quarter, led by Tauscher's 14 of 14. Tauscher, Geneva's best free-throw shooter, said he has made as many as 29 straight in practice.

"I left Tauscher in there because I wanted them to stop fouling us," Ralston said. "I figured if he made 10 in a row they would say, OK, we concede, but they weren't going to do that. I don't know the point they were trying to make with the fouling after 5 seconds. I've never coached a game where intentionally fouling for five minutes. I don't get it."

Geneva probably would have hit 100 but a running clock started with 35 seconds left when Jack Delabar made two free throws to open up a 30-point lead.

It marked the most points a Ralston-coached team has ever scored. He said the most one of his Grant teams scored was 90 against Woodstock, and that took three overtimes.

Tauscher finished with 28 points and Christian Frederking scored 20 as Geneva rolled without Tyler Scofield and Michael Santacaterina. The Vikings will look for a more normal game when they play in the semifinals Friday.

"Our goal was to go 3-0, we won our pool, now we have to refocus for the semifinals," Tauscher said. "We need to work on containing the ball on defense, we pride ourselves on our defense, we need to shore up our help-side defense if we want to win this tournament."