Marmion tops ACC behind Berdelle's 32 points
The way Aurora Central Catholic played its 2-3 zone put Marmion's Mark Berdelle in his own offensive zone.
Berdelle turned the last 10 minutes into a personal layup drill Saturday. The 6-foot-1 senior scored 18 of his career-high 32 points to lift the Cadets to a 61-49 comeback victory in the 14th annual High School Hoops Showdown at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.
The victory before a good-sized and spirited crowd evened the all-time series between the Aurora rivals at 35-35.
"Bragging rights for the rest of the year," said Marmion senior Eddy Grahovec with a smile. "We tied it up, baby."
And Marmion evened its overall record at 9-9 as Berdelle sliced and diced the ACC (8-10) zone after it had taken a 38-32 lead with 1:42 left in the third quarter on a 3-point play by Paul Kaminski.
Berdelle drove his way to 12 points with a pair of 3-point plays in a 17-point run to put Marmion up 49-38 with 5:55 left.
"Graham (6-foot-7, 295-pound Glasgow) did a great job of attracting him," Berdelle said of ACC's 6-4 Robert DeMyers, who had 7 blocked shots and 16 points. "Through that whole stretch they had a smaller guy on me when Graham would go to the opposite side.
"It was just pretty easy to get that one open side on a smaller guy there."
Berdelle hit 8 of his first 9 second-half shots to finish 13-for-25 from the field and eclipse his previous best of 22 points. He also had 13 rebounds of Marmion's 44-29 advantage.
"We felt Mark really had the skills necessary to turn and face and put the ball on the floor and that's how we wanted to attack their 2-3," said Marmion coach Ryan Paradise. "We knew they weren't going to let Eddy get a lot of good open looks. You can't take away everything and obviously Mark was open a good portion of the day."
Grahovec had 10 points on 3-for-10 shooting and 7 rebounds. Glasgow had 10 points on 5-for-10 shooting and 10 rebounds.
"This shows we have so much depth on our team," Grahovec said. "Other players on our team can score points."
Five players scored in the 14-4 tear which erased ACC's 28-24 deficit. But coach Nate Drye thought that took a lot out of his team, which got no closer in the fourth quarter than 49-42 with 4:41 left.
"It's probably not a good idea to let a kid go in for uncontested layups," Drye said after Marmion shot 14-for-29 from the field after halftime. "I was surprised at how bad we guarded. I thought our defensive effort in the second half was deplorable."
Conversely, Paradise was ecstatic with Alex Theisen limiting ACC's Ryan Harreld to 7 points on 3-for-10 shooting.
"This game kind of sums up our season so far," Paradise said. "We have stretches where we're lights out - and stretches where we can't make layups and can't make free throws."