Another strong showing, but Carmel falls short
Which is more shocking: Carmel's boys playing winning basketball - and scoring lots of points - or colossal Connor Sexson swishing 3-pointers?
Sexson, an All-East Suburban Catholic Conference defensive lineman who was listed at 6 feet 3 and 245 pounds during football, showed off his finesse side during the Corsairs' 57-39 loss to visiting Lake Forest on Saturday night.
His fourth 3-pointer, 55 seconds into the second quarter, had the Corsairs up 20-15.
"A lot of teams don't expect me to be able to shoot the 3s because they come out here and see like a huge D-lineman," Sexson said. "So I just get wide-open shots."
Sexson sinks 'em.
"I got to see (Carmel) play a couple of times and I told the guys, 'He can step out and shoot it,' " Scouts coach Phil LaScala said. "They didn't believe me when they saw him."
Sexson cooled off - he didn't hit another shot - and so did Carmel.
Senior guard Mitch Hopfinger led Lake Forest to victory by piling up 18 points, 7 steals, 4 assists and 4 rebounds.
"They're a bunch of football players, a bunch of strong kids," Hopfinger, a strong kid himself, said of the Corsairs.
Lake Forest's 6-7 Josh Bruns drained a pair of 3s and scored 10 points, and the Scouts held the Corsairs without a field goal in the third quarter, as they improved to 3-2.
While Carmel fell to 4-4, the Corsairs' improved play under second-year head coach John Ryan has been significant. They won only six times last season and counted only 4 wins the previous winter.
"We don't think of ourselves as Carmel basketball anymore," said Sexson, whose 12 points were a team high. "We're new. We're not the old. We're going for an over-. 500 record this year. Anything else is unacceptable."
Carmel was coming off a 73-point effort in a win over Joliet Catholic on Friday night and had been averaging nearly 61 points per game. The Corsairs' point total against Lake Forest was a season low.
When Sexson wasn't hitting 3s early, Carmel was feeding the ball inside to 6-3 Patrick Cox (another football player) and 6-6 Jonathan Huisel.
Huisel, who grabbed 8 rebounds, scored on a putback with 6:31 left in the first half to extend Carmel's lead to 22-15.
"They're a big, bruising team," LaScala said. "They did a good job of getting the ball inside and taking advantage of some of our weaknesses. But in the second half we toughened up a little bit and, really, I thought the key was hitting the boards defensively."
Lake Forest closed the half by outscoring Carmel 14-2 and led 29-24, as Hopfinger and Ryan Atherley hit second-quarter 3s. The Scouts then limited Carmel to 0-of-11 shooting in the third quarter.
With three minutes gone in the fourth, Lake Forest's lead had swelled to 53-29.
"We weren't swinging the ball really well, we were throwing some bad passes, and turnovers killed us," Sexson said. "The ball just wasn't falling in for us today, and we got to play better defense."