St. Francis waves off Aurora Central

St. Francis' student section waited till the fourth quarter to bid Aurora Central Catholic's boys basketball team a hearty hey, hey, goodbye.

ACC coach Nathan Drye didn't think his Chargers ever gave them a proper hello.

St. Francis got on ACC early and outlasted the inevitable 3-point barrage to win the Suburban Christian Conference crossover game 59-51 on Friday in Wheaton.

St. Francis (7-10) opened on a 17-2 run, working the high-low between Ryan Coyle and Joe Pfeiffer like a "well-oiled machine," said Spartans coach Shawn Healy.

Never out of it while Joey Guth and Steve Hollon are dressed, ACC (10-7) rallied to within 55-51 with 44 seconds to play. Drye remained unimpressed.

"We weren't ready to play," he said. "They took it right to us, we played no defense, we missed layups, we took bad shots, we gave up second shots on their end. We were just brutal. It's my fault too. Obviously, I didn't have our guys ready to go tonight, because we were absolutely dreadful."

Drye took two timeouts in the first five minutes trying to stop St. Francis from riddling the 2-3 zone.

"Coming into the game we knew attacking the high post and short corner there'd be a lot of openings, and we were able to get that a lot in the beginning," said Pfeiffer, who scored a team-high 20 points on 8-of-9 shooting.

Spartans guard Mark Schmitt drew the assignment on Guth and contained him to 17 points, 5 under his average. Guth's lone first-quarter 3 cut ACC's deficit to 17-5.

"I expected just to come into this game, make it a game and win it," the senior sharpshooter said.

That's what Healy expected.

"We told the kids after the first quarter, they're not going to stay down," he said. "You've got to stay battling, you've got to stay focused on what we needed to do. We did ... but not consistently throughout 32 minutes."

Guth, Kent Brauweiler and Hollon - scoring a game-high 21 points - pulled ACC within 50-47 with 3:50 to play and within 55-51 on 2 Hollon free throws with 44 seconds left.

Schmitt, who scored 14 points, made 2 free throws at 42 seconds for a 57-51 edge. The Spartans finished as they began, Pfeiffer scoring inside off a Coyle assist.

Senior guard Larry Murison scored 7 points with 7 rebounds in his first action since spraining an ankle in the Spartans' opener.

"Getting my wind back's going to be tough," the fan favorite said. "My ankle was kind of sore, but I'll fight through that."