Viator defense prevents repeat

St. Viator's big first-half lead was disappearing and its offense was sputtering early in the second half for St. Viator on Saturday night.

It resembled an East Suburban Catholic Conference boys basketball loss to Benet just 24 hours earlier.

But the Lions (12-7, 4-5) avoided a repeat by relying on their defense until their offense got rolling again in a 53-40 ESCC win over Nazareth (7-10, 1-7) in Arlington Heights.

"I'd like to believe we learned our lessson from (Friday) night and that's been the character of this team," said Viator coach Joe Majkowski.

"Coach told us before the game that (Friday) night when our shots weren't going down, we weren't playing defense on the other end," said Viator junior Jack Etchingham, who came off the bench for 9 points and 13 rebounds. "He said, 'Don't lose the D.' I don't think we did and in the fourth quarter we got it going again."

Nazareth was busted out of its 2-3 zone as Richard McLoughlin (17 points), Brendan King, Alan Aboona (10 points, 5 assists) and Bryce Hensley hit consecutive 3s in the first 3:20 en route to a 35-21 lead.

Then the Lions went just 1-for-11 with 6 of their 15 turnovers in a 3-point third quarter. Nazareth got within 37-32 on a drive by talented 6-foot-4 sophomore Richard Powers (12 points, 9 rebounds).

But Etchingham blanked Powers on 4 missed shots the rest of the way and McLoughlin had half the points in a 16-4 Viator burst.

"After (Friday) night we wanted to come out for a full 32 minutes instead of half the game," Etchingham said. "I thought we did pretty well tonight."

Hersey 54, Deerfield 47: Balance trumped a game-high 20 points from Deerfield's Duje Dukan for Hersey (8-11) in the nonconference game in Arlington Heights.

Kyle Miklasz (12 points), Brian Fabrizius (10), Jordan Mertes (9) and Kyle Mengarelli (8) led the Huskies to their third straight win.

"We seemed to flow a little better (offensively)," said Hersey coach Steve Messer. "We were able to space out better and drive it and kick it and make some baskets."

Thornwood 56, BG 40: Buffalo Grove (13-8) trailed host Thornwood 31-18 at the half but managed to trim its deficit to 6 points in the third quarter.

But 4 consecutive missed free throws - two of them the front end of 1-and-1s - ended the Bison's momentum in the nonconference game in South Holland.

"Our defense was excellent in the second half," said BG coach Ryan O'Connor, "but we got beat on the boards and didn't end their possessions with a rebound."

Juniors Mike Cornely and Kevin Mulligan led BG with 10 points apiece and senior James Hurley had 8.