St. Viator cruises past Marine Military

St. Viator knows that Saturday's game with Conant will be a tougher affair than it has had to deal with so far in its annual Thanksgiving tournament.

After routing Chicago Marine Military Academy 81-31 Friday night, once again their Saturday battle with Conant (both 3-0) will decide the tournament title.

"It'll be a fun game," said point guard Alan Aboona, one of 14 Lions to score in the game.

It also figures to be intense, tightly contested and perhaps a bit bruising.

But Aboona knows that as easily as Friday's victory came, tonight's will be just that tough to achieve.

"We have to take better care of the ball," he said. "We have to break their press."

And stay focused. It was almost hard to do that Friday night as the gap between the experienced Lions and their start-up guests, with no seniors, got wider and wider. St. Viator scored almost at will, after 27 CMMA turnovers, on fastbreaks after missed shots and in the half-court offense, knocking down 6 of 10 three-pointers.

Richard Markovits paced the Lions with 10 points, while Jack Etchingham added 9 and sophomore center Chris Myjak and tri-captain Rich McLoughlin each had 8. The Lions had the advantage in almost every category, except rebounding - but that was only because there weren't many of their own shots that missed.

"We're very balanced," said Aboona, a senior tri-captain.

"We just wanted to make sure we were doing things right," said St. Viator coach Joe Majkowski. "We shared the ball offensively. We did a nice job, kept our focus."

And he's not putting any stock in the fact his Lions whipped Highland Park on Wednesday night while Conant barely squeezed by them Friday night.

"Those scores mean absolutely nothing," said Majkowski, who said he's counting on the same kind of depth and balance his team showed against CMMA.