Etchingham keys St. Viator win
Every successful basketball team needs to have a player that plays with intensity.
Meet St. Viator's Jack Etchingham. The 6-foot-3 swingman led the Lions with 16 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and plenty of intensity on Friday night.
He also had solid team support from Alan Aboona and Richard McLoughlin, who both scored 13 points. Aboona also had 5 rebounds and 3 steals, and Chris Myjak added 8 points and 6 rebounds.
The Lions knocked off visiting Marian Catholic 62-48 in East Suburban Catholic Conference play at Cahill Gymnasium.
"It was really physical on the boards," said Etchingham. "In this conference you have to play that way."
Etchingham started off well, scoring 6 first-quarter points for Viator.
"If I can hit my first few shots," said Etchingham, "it gives me a lot of confidence. In the second half we just had to pick each other up on offense and play tighter team defense."
"One thing that Jack doesn't lack is intensity," said Lions coach Joe Majkowski. " We don't look for him as a scorer. But it's nice to have a guy like Jack step it up when he has to. It makes us a better team."
The Lions, who travel to St. Patrick today, improved to 7-1 overall and 1-1 in conference play. Marian slipped to 2-5 and 0-2, but gave St.Viator all it could handle in the first half.
The Spartans led 17-13 at the quarterbreak and 26-25 at halftime.
Richard McLoughlin's basket from the top of the key gave the Lions the lead for good at 27-26 with 7:33 left in the third quarter. Etchingham nailed a 3-pointer for a 30-26 lead.
Leading 42-39 with 7:30 left, the Lions went on a 12-5 run to put the Spartans away. Etchingham had 5 points in the run.
"Marian took us out of our game and had us playing at a faster pace than what we wanted to do," said Majkowski. "In the second half we controlled things better. We stopped their drives into the middle."
St. Viator shot 45 percent from the field but held Marian Catholic to 36 percent while forcing 13 turnovers.
"Our guards did not play a very good second half," said Marian coach Mike Taylor. "Once we fell behind it was tough for us to catch up."
Glenbrook North 71, Maine West 54: Austin Weber was 8 of 15 from 3-point range and finished with 30 points and Alex Dragicevich had 20 as Glenbrook North came away from Des Plaines with a 71-54 victory in Central Suburban North play.
Alex Samuelson had a team-high 18 points and Conor Hart had 17 including three 3-pointers as Maine West fell to 3-4 overall and 0-2 in the CSL North.
Luther North 58, Christian Liberty 57: Luke Comerouski and Mike Hennek tied for team-high scoring honors with 14 points, but the Chargers (3-2) were outscored 20-12 in the fourth quarter of a hotly contested game in Chicago. Nathan Elleson had 12 points for Christian Liberty, and Hennek made a pair of 3-pointers in what coach Ken Kramer called his team's best game of the season.