St. Charles East rallies past Plainfield East
After having sophomore leading scorer Kendall Stephens foul out of the game with 1:45 remaining and St. Charles East already trailing Plainfield East, things didn’t appear overly promising for the Saints.
But the Saints (11-12) dug down deep and scored the game’s final 6 points to come away with a hard-fought, 64-60 nonconference triumph over the Bengals (13-9) Tuesday night in St. Charles.
The fourth quarter featured 7 lead changes, the last coming when junior forward Luke Ludke’s 2 free throws put the Saints ahead 61-60 with 41 seconds left.
After Zach Zajicek’s steal led to a pair of free throws from Spencer Motley and a 63-60 lead with 17 seconds remaining, the Bengals wasted an opportunity to tie the game when they committed their eighth turnover of the quarter with 6.8 seconds left.
“We got key stops and obviously executed down the stretch,” said Saints coach Brian Clodi, whose team played without the services of 6-5 junior Johnny Hondlik and 6-3 sophomore Mike Woods, both of whom sat out due to disciplinary reasons.
“You’ve got to win close games,” added Clodi. “We got it inside and we got the free throws.”
St. Charles East converted 21 of 31 foul shots and enjoyed a 12-point advantage at the free-throw line.
“They like to play aggressive man (defense),” said Clodi. “We had to be aggressive and attack it, and that’s what we did. We got the ball in the paint, and we got post touches when we needed them. We were the aggressor.”
While Stephens, who made a verbal commitment to Purdue earlier in the week, led the Saints with 19 points, Ludke (10 points), Matt Ray (8 points, 8 rebounds) and Zajicek provided the much-needed spark down the stretch.
“Without some key players, I thought our bench was unbelievable,” said Clodi. “Luke Ludke hasn’t played big minutes like that all year.”
Ludke, who logged heavy minutes in a recent JV game against Elgin, made the most of his increased varsity playing time.
“I knew we were down some guys so as a team we wanted to show them that we wanted to play for them,” said Ludke. “I’ve had some opportunities to shoot the ball in JV games but that’s not my role to score in varsity games.”
Ray came up with one of the Saints’ biggest baskets when his 3-pointer from the corner in the final minute of the third quarter cut the Bengals’ lead to 49-45.
“Matt had two key 3s and played great defense,” said Clodi. “He also had three offensive rebounds in the second half. That’s something we challenged our guys about at halftime because we didn’t have any in the first half.
“Zach, Matt and Luke — those guys are not seeing huge minutes so for them to step up in a big game like this against an athletic team, it was a big, big win for us.”
Motley and Charlie Fisher added 15 and 9 points, respectively, for the Saints, who visit cross-town rival St. Charles North Friday night.
Myles Walters scored 19 points for Plainfield East, which had its 4-game winning streak snapped.