Myjak, St. Viator fight back to beat York
Everything seemed to be stacked against St. Viator in Tuesday night's nonconference boys basketball trip to Elmhurst to face York.
The Lions were coming off a tough weekend split against perennial East Suburban Catholic Conference power St. Joseph and cross-town rival Hersey. York was backed by a sizeable student contingent getting louder and louder as it built an 8-point lead late in the fourth quarter.
Senior scoring leaders Alan Aboona and Richard McLoughlin were struggling to find their shooting touch.
But Viator (6-1) dug in and completed a 16-point turnaround in the last 9:22 for a 62-54 victory as 6-foot-4 sophomore Chris Myjak scored a career-high 19 points.
"We played through a lot of adversity and showed some characater tonight," said Viator coach Joe Majkowski.
"We knew it would be a tough game coming off the Hersey (58-44) win," Myjak said. "They beat Hersey (62-36) so it would be a tough game no matter what.
"Everyone was pretty calm. We held our ground and battled down to the end."
Myjak came in averaging 9.1 points but hit all 6 of his shots from the field and was 7-for-10 on free throws as Viator finished 28-for-38. He finished with 9 rebounds and his 2 free throws with 1:10 left in the third started the comeback.
"We recognized he had a little bit of an advantage inside and tried to get it to him as much as possible," Majkowski said, "and he carried us."
For York (4-2) it was a matter of picking its poison by playing Myjak straight up to keep him from kicking it out to Aboona, McLoughlin and Brendan King for 3s.
"And he burned the living daylights out of us," said York coach Al Biancalana. "To the kid's credit he was really aggressive and we didn't play smart at times in the post."
Junior Will Sullivan scored 9 of his 19 points in the first 5:51 after halftime and a 3 by Cody Kliethermes put York up 44-36.
Viator missed 12 of 14 shots in the third but York went from shooting 50 percent from the field (15-for-30) to missing its last 11 shots.
"We started helping on the screens more and stopped them from hitting 3s," Myjak said as York missed its last five behind the arc to end 7-for-15.
Aboona (12 points) was 2-for-10 from the field when he hit a 3 for a 47-46 lead with 5:26 left. Sean Fendley (15 points, three 3s) hit 2 free throws to give York its last lead with 4:53 left.
Julian Sipiora, who gave Viator a big boost off the bench with Richard Markovits, hit a driving jumper on the baseline with 4:26 left to start a decisive 8-point run.
Jack Etchingham found Myjak for a reverse layup and Aboona and McLoughlin (18 points, 11-for-12 free throw shooting) each hit 2 free throws as Viator went 11-for-14 the final two minutes.
"Two things we did a poor job of were we didn't defend inside and we fouled too much," Biancalana said after York went 17-for-18 on free throws. "You can't allow teams to walk into your gym and shoot (38) free throws."
And Viator wasn't going to just walk out of someone else's gym quietly.
"That's just the type of kids they are," Majkowski said. "They're all successful athletes and that means a lot. They aren't going to give in to anybody."