St. Edward gets humbled
Few teams have the size to match up with Wheaton Academy's talented 6-foot-9 center, Luke Johnson.
The senior's presence alone caused St. Edward to pack its zone defense in tightly from the start of Friday's Suburban Christian Gold boys basketball game in Elgin.
Trouble is, Johnson isn't the only Warrior with the talent to thwart an opposing defense, as guard Wes Koral proved from the perimeter in Wheaton Academy's 80-50 dismantling of the Green Wave.
The 6-3 senior sank three 3-pointers in the first quarter to draw the St. Edward defense out, which later allowed Johnson the room in the lane he needed to score 19 points to go with 11 rebounds.
"The first quarter I was kind of feeling it," said Koral, who finished with a career-high 29 points, 12 above his season average. "In warmups I shot it pretty well. I just came out and shot the three well."
It was the kind of balanced attack that has kept the Warriors undefeated. They improved to 8-0 overall, 3-0 in the Gold Division.
"They can beat you inside and if you pack it inside, they can knock down the three," St. Edward coach P.J. White said. "That's why they're a good team. And they're very athletic and well coached.
"Size is where we're hurting, so we thought we could squeeze it in a little bit defensively and if they missed some, we could hang with them. But we didn't hang with them long enough."
St. Edward (3-4, 1-2) trailed the Warriors 27-16 in the second quarter when point guard and leading scorer Michael Ellis was forced to the bench with his third foul with 5:27 left in the half.
Wheaton Academy (8-0, 3-0) took advantage, using multiple steals to fuel a 14-4 run to close the half.
"Once I got that third foul, it was a bad moment because everything went downhill," Ellis said. "We had several turnovers in a row, so that wasn't good. We just have to brush up on things and try to get a win (today)."
The Warriors led 41-20 at the half and erased any doubt as to the final outcome by scoring 27 points in the third-quarter, when they shot 9 of 11 from the field. Johnson scored 10 of his points in the period and Koral connected on his fourth 3-pointer in 6 attempts.
Junior guard Lars Olson added 10 points for Wheaton Academy, which won the rebounding battle 34-21.
Ed O'Halloran led St. Edward with 16 points, including four 3-pointers. Ellis finished with 12 points.
Wheaton Academy next puts its undefeated record on the line next against Timothy Christian in the opener of the Glenbard West Holiday Tournament on Monday at 4:30 p.m.
"We won the title last year, so we'll see if we can defend our title," Warriors coach Paul Ferguson said.
St. Edward is back in action today at 1:30 p.m. The Green Wave play Cary-Grove in a pool play matchup at the Jacobs Holiday Tournament.