St. Edward pulls off Class 2A regional upset
GENOA - The St. Edward boys basketball team didn't allow history to three-peat itself.
Bounced from the playoffs in regional semifinals the last two seasons by Genoa-Kingston, No. 4 St. Edward exacted revenge on the top-seeded Cogs with a wire-to-wire 61-52 upset victory in semifinal action at the Class 2A Genoa-Kingston regional on Wednesday.
St. Edward took a 3-0 lead on senior Riley Coleman's 3-pointer 15 seconds into the game and never trailed, stunning the top seed on its home floor.
"There was just something about the team tonight where everyone was confident and thought they were going to go out and actually win," St. Edward coach Keith Chuipek said. "I have not seen that in a long time... Tonight they just had that little edge. It's hard to define that, but we had it and that's a good thing."
St. Edward (11-18) advances to Friday's regional final against No. 3 Aurora Christian (14-12), which defeated No. 2 Plano 54-51 in the second semifinal.
The Green Wave shot 9 of 18 from 3-point range, led by 4 bombs from Coleman (game high 18 points) and 3 more from senior guard Josh Dix (14 points). Those results were a far cry from the 2008 game, when the Cogs shut Dix out completely.
"Last year was kind of an embarrassment with me not scoring," Dix said. "I had to prove something this year. This feels awesome."
The Green Wave connected on 5-of-9 attempts from 3-point range in the first half to forge leads of 14-6 after a quarter and 29-24 at halftime.
"They hit some difficult shots," Genoa-Kingston coach Corey Jenkins said. "I felt we were there on a lot of the shots they made. We had a hand up, they were contested. Give them credit. They hit them."
The Wave didn't inflict its damage from the perimeter only. Senior Steve Martin scored 9 points, mostly on jumpers from the paint, and senior Jim Waclawik scored 9 points and hauled in 8 rebounds, 5 offensive.
"We said we had to crash the boards and we were able to do that and do it well," Waclawik said. "They were the No. 1 seed and we were the No. 4 seed, so we didn't have anything to lose. If we lost, everyone thought we were going to lose. If we won, great for us. We didn't want to stop playing."
St. Edward took its largest lead of the game at 42-32 when Coleman brought the ball up court and calmly stroked an open 3-pointer with 1:12 left in the third quarter.
Trailing 49-38 in the fourth, Genoa-Kingston (17-10) ran off 8 straight points and pulled within 3 points of the Wave when junior guard Nick Lopez made 2 free throws with 2:14 left in the game.
Dix restored a 5-point cushion with 2 free throws in the super bonus and the Wave held off any more comeback attempts by sinking 13 of 15 from the line in the final quarter.
"It feels great," Coleman said. "We're more experienced this year, we played good competition all year and we're handling the pressure better now. It's just a good time for things to start clicking and for us to start playing together."