WW South slips by St. Ignatius

Wheaton Warrenville South 6-foot-6 junior Jason Schuman returned to the starting lineup Tuesday evening to match up against St. Ignatius 6-9 junior Nnanna Egwu.

Schuman wound up putting the dramatic finishing touch on a 37-36 victory with a tiebreaking free throw off an offensive rebound with 2.1 seconds to play to put the Tigers (8-3) into the consolation championship of York's 36th annual Jack Tosh Holiday Classic in Elmhurst.

"I'm not that great of a free-throw shooter," Schuman said after missing the first off the back rim out of a St. Ignatius timeout but using all of the rim to make the second. "I tried to get (the miss) out of my mind."

For the second straight game the Tigers rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit for a 1-point win and will play for the consolation crown at 5 p.m. today against Conant (7-5), a 65-57 winner over Glenbard South.

"I told our kids if you defend you give yourself a chance and I thought we did a pretty good job of defending," said WW South coach Mike Healy of shutting out the Wolfpack the last 3:48.

"We're not going to give up," said WW South junior Reilly O'Toole, who had a game-high 19 points on 7-for-13 shooting from the field and 5-for-8 on 3-pointers. "We'll keep fighting to get back in the game."

Schuman held his own in a tough battle in his matchup with Egwu, who has already committed to Wisconsin. Egwu finished with 12 points on 6-of-12 shooting and had only 3 rebounds.

"(Schuman) did an unbelievably great job and set the tone early in the game," Healy said.

"I thought he did great," O'Toole said. "He boxed out and was real physical with him and that's what coach asked him to do. It was a very unselfish effort of him."