St. Viator escapes Carmel in OT

All signs pointed to St. Viator suffering its first loss and Carmel finally getting a close game to go its way.

The Corsairs' relentless man-to-man defense and the shooting of Tim Hendricks turned an 8-point deficit into a 4-point lead going into the final two minutes of the East Suburban Catholic Conference boys basketball game at Cahill Gym in Arlington Heights on Saturday night.

But Viator (6-0, 2-0) overcame 22 turnovers and Hendricks' 3-pointer to force overtime to pull out a 57-53 win.

“When that happened we could have said it wasn't worth it tonight but we didn't,” Viator coach Joe Majkowski said of a weekend sweep that included Friday's overtime win over St. Patrick. “We didn't give in and we fought back.”

Junior Brian Wilhite came off the bench to score a team-high 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting and hit three 3s. A basket 1:03 into overtime off 1 of 13 rebounds by Chris Myjak put the Lions ahead for good at 53-51 in their best start since the 2000-01 team won its first 12 games.

“We don't give up and our youth plays into that,” said Wilhite of a lineup where six of the top seven players Saturday were juniors. “We get in there and battle through it.”

Carmel (3-7, 0-3) put up another tough battle behind Hendricks (24 points, four 3s). who also held Viator point guard D.J. Morris to 11 of his 18-point average. But it wound up with its sixth loss by 5 points or less.

“I don't know if we're supposed to be in these games but in my opinion we should be winning some of these games,” said Carmel coach Tim Bowen. “Tonight's effort was exponentially better than it has been. We're much closer to where we need to be.”

The Corsairs were on the verge of more than just getting close when Doug Meyer's baseline drive and 2 free throws put them up 44-40 with 2:12 left. But Morris hit a 3 for his only field goal and Wilhite's 3 at 1:03 put the Lions up 47-46.

Kevin Walsh (14 points) hit 2 free throws with 14 seconds left to put Viator up 51-48. Hendricks came down and buried a tying 21-footer with five seconds left.

But Carmel missed its first 4 shots in overtime and Walsh and Morris combined to hit 4-for-6 free throws for Viator in the final 57 seconds.

“We did a great job in that last 15 seconds (of regulation),” Bowen said. “Then in overtime we forgot what we had done for 32 minutes. We fired the ball up a little too quick and didn't allow our rebounders to get into position.”