Looking back on wild night at St. Charles East

I'm shooting from all corners tonight - the sports writer's version of a heat check...

Rough regional: At the clip the Geneva, St. Charles North and St. Charles East girls basketball teams have been playing much of this season, it wasn't too hard to see multiple regional champions coming from that group.

That was until the IHSA put them all in the same regional at St. Charles North, along with South Elgin and Batavia.

If you thought it was disappointing from a fans' perspective knowing all these local teams would take turns knocking each other out instead of winning their own regionals, listen to the reaction from the coaches.

"I was shocked when I saw the regional," St. Charles East coach Lori Drumtra said. "I fully expected North to be in there. It's so different, now why did you (the IHSA) do this (adding Geneva)?"

It's a change from last year, when Geneva and St. Charles East were both able to win regionals.

While Drumtra was hoping that would be the case again in 2010, especially with a senior-dominated team hoping to go out in style, now the Saints' road goes through not just the North Stars but also the Vikings - a reality that was hard to take at first.

"I quickly put it (the draw) aside because when I first heard it it sucked the wind right out of me," Drumtra said. "But you have to deal with it. It's going to be a dogfight. I was hoping it would be a little different, about like it was last year."

While Geneva will enter as a deserved favorite given its great run to the state tournament last year and undefeated record this season, it certainly isn't an easy draw for the Vikings to have to play local rivals who also are so talented. If they meet St. Charles North, the game would be on the North Stars' home court and against a team that stayed within 11 points of Geneva earlier this year without their leading scorer Jenna Bell.

First up for the Vikings? A test against Hillcrest, the third-ranked team in Class 3A, at 1 p.m. Saturday at the McDonald's Shootout. For a closer look at the entire shootout, see Josh Welge's preview on page 6.

I (still) don't believe what I just saw: One of the many things I love about high school sports is that you can walk into a gym and see something you'd never think you'd see. You might have watched 500 games the last 20 years, and in that 501st game comes something that is a complete stunner.

That stunner can come at any time at any game. Like last season's DeKalb Christmas Tournament, when I figured I'd settle in for a 55-45ish game between the Geneva boys and North Grand, and then two hours later I'm walking out of the gym after a 96-67 final when the Vikings shot 67 free throws - third-most in state history - 40 in the fourth quarter.

Or the season opener for Batavia this year and the best finish to a game to date, Sam Shump's heads-up cross-court pass to a wide-open Adam LeTourneau for a 3-pointer that beat King at the buzzer.

Or this year's Aurora Christian-Aurora Central game, what I figured would be a spirited Suburban Christian matchup between the neighboring schools, then turned into a Joey Guth highlight show with a blistering 41 points.

Like I said, you never know what you might see.

That said, I still can't believe what happened at St. Charles East Wednesday night.

For those who missed it, and to make a long story short, the Saints did not get credit for one of their points late in the fourth quarter, so what would have been a 52-51 win over Loyola wound up going to overtime tied at 51, and then St. Charles East lost 59-57 in OT.

There's so many directions to take this. It's easy to say the Saints got robbed, though I think that would be more accurate if it happened on the road. When it's your own scorekeepers on your own court, that argument fails.

I asked several of my colleagues after the game if they had ever heard of anything like this. Nobody had. Probably a combined 40 years or so of covering high school sports.

Someone wondered when the mistake was finally corrected in overtime, why didn't it mean the Saints won? I certainly don't think that's fair to Loyola to retroactively change the score. They would have played the final seconds of regulation differently had they known the correct score was 52-51 and not 51-51, fouling the Saints to get the ball back instead of letting St. Charles East run out the final 8.3 seconds.

One of my pet peeves about going to a high school game is when the scorekeeper doesn't immediately update the scoreboard, you get four or five loudmouthed fans yelling "The score is wrong, the score is wrong!" and some uglier comments.

The last thing in the world I want to do is encourage more of that behavior. Yet, if someone would have done just that Wednesday...

Bottom line, I think Saints coach Lori Drumtra not only took the high road in her comments afterward, she was correct. The Saints could have rendered that whole fiasco meaningless by holding onto a 6-point lead in the final 33 seconds.

STC alums welcome: Speaking of St. Charles East, any alums of the boys basketball program dating back to the St. Charles days are invited to return Jan. 23 for the annual St. Charles North-East game.

Last year St. Charles North assistant Rob Prentiss organized a "Night of Legends" which honored Ron Johnson, Jim Parker and Chuck Rachow, three longtime basketball coaches whose tenure began at St. Charles High School and ended at what had become St. Charles East.

After a much larger than expected group of former players attended - several of whom traveled very long distances to be there - organizers have decided to hold a reunion of former players, without necessarily honoring anyone, again this year in the hope this will become an annual event on the night of the East/North game. There will be a reception for all former players of St. Charles East, St. Charles North and St. Charles at Room B113 of the Getaway Restaurant following the boys game.

Jan. 23rd is also Hall of Fame night at East, there's an outstanding matchup between the two girls basketball teams with Upstate Eight title ramifications at 4 p.m., and a kick-a-thon between games. Should be a terrific night.

Judging by all the former Saints who came back last Saturday night for an alumni game after the varsity played Bartlett, support for St. Charles basketball is alive and well among former players.