Viator comes up just a bit short to Titans
St. Viator's boys basketball team must still be scratching its heads today.
The Lions, for the most part Wednesday night at Elk Grove, neutralized Glenbrook South's inside force, Jack Cooley, and its outside bomber, Ryan Hopkins. The Lions controlled the tempo, made it sticky for the Titans to find good looks against their combination zone defenses and registered as much floor burn as they did field goals.
And lost.
Somehow, Glenbrook South, the Niles North Class 4A sectional's No. 7 seed, did manage to find 6-foot-9 Cooley (15 points) just enough times, including twice early in the fourth quarter as part of a 6-point string to open the period en route to a 50-44 Class 4A regional semifinal win.
The Titans will meet sectional No. 2-seed Maine East at 7:30 p.m. Friday for the regional title.
"We try to get the ball inside," to its intimidating 6-9 (Notre Dame-bound Cooley), 6-6 (Jack Ryan) and 6-4 (Trent Monckton) starting line, said South (16-11) head coach Scott Nemecek.
Viator doesn't even have anyone over 6-4 on its roster and it showed - South won the battle of the boards 27-16.
But while Cooley, with help from Hopkins (10 points), Ryan (8) and Monckton (6), was helping Glenbrook South pull away, St. Viator wasn't exactly pulling up stakes.
"This is a great group of kids who have always played hard," said Viator (15-11) coach Joe Majkowski.
Paced by Alan Aboona's uncanny shooting (17 points, including all of the team's 10 in the second quarter), the Lions stayed within range.
But they were limited to short jumpers most of the night because of Cooley, who altered many shots and outright changed their minds on others.
"He's a presence in there," said Majkowski.
"We couldn't get that last shot," to get the lead back, said the junior Aboona. "We over-thought it," when confronted inside by Cooley.
The Lions were within 31-30 and later 44-42 in the second half, but, "We just couldn't get over the hump," said Majkowski.
Having to rely primarily on perimeter looks, the Lions could only fashion a 17-of-41 shooting performance and basically offset their own solid defensive effort.
Dan Faerber, Bryce Hensley and Richard McLoughlin all hit consistently from medium range, and Jack Etchingham banged all night inside with Cooley, but medium range shots were the best-percentage looks they could get.
"We saw (Cooley) coming," when it came to shooting inside, said Aboona. "It's been an up-and-down year, but we've been pretty resilient."
"I thought we played well defensively," said Majkowski. "They just battled."