South Elgin rallies to get past St. Ignatius

South Elgin coach Chaz Taft knew that beating St. Ignatius on Saturday afternoon at the 36th annual Jack Tosh boys basketball tournament would not be easy.

"We hadn't played in 11 days and I told the players to expect some missed shots and some turnovers," Taft said. "We were a little sluggish at first out of the gate."

The Storm (9-1) rallied from a 33-29 third-quarter deficit to beat the Wolfpack 43-36 in first-round action at York.

The Storm's reward is a date with top-seeded Maine South on Monday at 5:45 p.m.

"We take a lot of pride in closing out games," Taft said. "All these guys pull for each other. I give a lot of credit to Sam Sutter. He ran that delay offense of ours beautifully at the end of the game. He's beginning to understand game situations."

The turning point came with 3:05 left in the game and St. Ignatius leading 31-21. Storm sophomore Brandon Carson scored, which ignited the defense for the rest the game.

"When we get a big basket by a role player, it just helped us step up our defense," Carson said. "We wanted to show the people of Elgin what we can do."

Freshman Jacob Maestranzi (7 points, 3 assists), and Sutter hit 3-point baskets to finish the quarter as the Storm trailed 33-29.

St. Ignatius' last lead at 36-35 with 4:19 to play came on a free throw by Nnanna Egwu (13 points, 7 rebounds). The Wolfpack went scoreless the rest of the game.

Tommy Childs, who scored 8 of his 12 points in the final quarter, put the Storm ahead for good at 37-36 with 3:10 left.

Sutter (16 points) and Childs each hit 2 free throws before Childs' basket at the buzzer on an assist from John Menken closed out the contest.

"We were a little nervous at the start of the game," Childs said. "After Carson scored, I knew that I had to be the one to pick us up on the defense and pressure the ball. We didn't panic when we were behind. Our defense paid off for us."

"We had some bad things happen to us down the stretch," said St. Ignatius coach Rich Kehoe. "Our offense broke down, which led to defensive breakdowns. Their defense pushed us away from the middle and we weren't able to find open players."

The Storm had only 7 turnovers for the contest, none in the fourth quarter.