Viator falls at Notre Dame

If a silver lining can come out of a loss, then St.Viator’s boys basketball team found the lining.

Junior Chris Myjak scored 25 points and pulled down 8 rebounds in the Lions 68-59 loss to Notre Dame in Niles Friday night.

But the Dons were dialing from long distance in hitting 10-of-15 attempts from 3-point range as they improved to 17-3 overall and 6-2 in the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

“Chris played well tonight,” said Lions coach Joe Majkowski. “We’ve been looking for that type of game with him. I was pleased with our overall team effort. We had a few breakdowns that hurt and we didn’t guard the premiter as well as we did in practice.”

“I was more agressive from the start,” said Myjak. “I haven’t had a great offensive year. What I need to do the rest of the season is to come out aggressive like I did tonight.”

The Lions (12-7, 4-4) pulled out to a 28-16 lead with 3:02 left in the first half.

Myjak and Kevin Walsh (19 points, 7 rebounds) each scored 6 points in a 12-4 run.

Junior guard Greg Leifel got the Dons back into the game by hitting three straight 3s. That pulled Notre Dame to within 28-25 at halftime.

Leifel hit five 3s to account for all of his points.

“I’ve been waiting for a day like this,” said Leifel. “The coaches know I’m a good shooter. I think it carried us over into the second half.”

Quinton Chievous scored all 15 Notre Dame points in the third quarter but the Lions scored two more and led 45-40 going into the fourth.

Chievous (26 points) put Notre Dame ahead for good at 55-54 with 2:28 left in the game. Leifel applied the back breaker with a baseline 3 for a 63-57 lead with 1:00 left.

The Dons’ Rodney Pryor did a lot of fourth-quarter damage, scoring 12 of his 17 points. They also hit 5-of-7 free throws down the stretrch.

“St. Viator played us real tough,” said Notre Dame coach Tom Les. “They were more aggressive than us for three quarters. We picked up the pace in the fourth quarter.”