Benet takes care of St. Viator

When the Benet Academy boys basketball team needed a sparkplug, Dave Sobolewski was there to deliver.

The sophomore guard scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half to lead the Redwings to a 73-63 victory over St. Viator in an East Suburban Catholic showdown at Cahill Gym in Arlington Heights.

St. Viator held an 8-point lead at halftime but was outscored 15-4 through the first six minutes of the third quarter. The Lions (11-7, 3-5) managed to briefly regain the lead, but never the momentum, and the fourth quarter was all Benet (7-10, 4-4).

"It's probably our best win this season," said Sobolewski, who was a perfect 11-for-11 from the free-throw line. "The first half we were pretty dead. We really tried to focus on winning on the defensive end of the court, and we were lucky to hit our free throws down the stretch."

Luck seemed to have little to do with it. The Redwings made 87 percent (20-for-23) of their free throws in the second half, which all but sealed the deal.

"This season we haven't always been consistent with our free throws, so it was good tonight to see us come out and hit them," said senior Joe Meyerhoff, who tallied 14 points and 7 rebounds for Benet.

"There are lots of things in the first half that we noticed them doing defensively that we took advantage of. They were pressuring us a lot, so we took advantage of back doors, a spinning baseline, and getting the ball in the post."

Lions junior Alan Aboona hit two 3-pointers and scored a game-high 30 points, including a 12-of-13 effort from the free-throw line. Also contributing were Richard McLoughlin (14 points) and Bryce Hensley (9).

"I wasn't real crazy with our overall offensive effort. I certainly wasn't happy with our defensive effort," St. Viator coach Joe Majkowski said. "We had some decent shots that didn't go down, but we need to be better on each end of the floor."