St. Francis hangs on against stubborn Montini
The difference in having 5 wins and having 15 wins is sometimes infinitesimal.
The Montini Catholic boys basketball team hates that this is true.
The Broncos shot 53 percent Friday night, got the good fortune of several awarded free throws and had a chance to tie or win on their last possession, yet a turnover on the last play with 12 seconds left allowed the visiting Spartans to escape with a 63-61 Suburban Christian Conference Blue victory.
"It's frustrating," said St. Francis coach Shawn Healy, commenting about how one mistake can be the difference in an otherwise efficient game.
"We played our best basketball tonight," Montini coach Brian Opoka said. "We put a heck of a game together and battled down to the wire."
Healy and the Spartans (12-11, 5-4) were able to walk out winners thanks to the play of three starters.
Michael Scholl hit 4 3-pointers in the first half as he and Ryan Coyle combined to score 26 of St. Francis' 28 first-half points.
"We were (upset) with the start, giving up 4 easy points," said Coyle, who scored 22. "We just fed off each other. I drove, we kicked and he made his shots."
"You would have thought it would have taken some pressure off," Healy said about Scholl's shots. "But Montini was playing so good. We needed every point. Thank God, Mike and Ryan both showed up tonight."
In the second half, Scholl, who scored 20, hit just one 3, but St. Francis got a lift from Nick Donati's 14 second-half points.
"Nick's an aggressive player," Coyle said. "He really finished a lot (of drives)."
Montini had a chance in the first quarter to open up an 8-point lead but TyShawn Johnson missed 2 free throws resulting from a technical for a St. Francis roster violation.
With 18 seconds left in the fourth quarter and St. Francis up four, Scholl was called for an intentional foul, potentially allowing the Broncos (5-17, 1-9) to tie or take the lead.
Montini's Jim Miller missed the ensuing free throws, but the Broncos got a break when the rebound went out of bounds off St. Francis.
Johnson promptly hit his third 3 to make it a 1-point game.
Scholl hit 1 of 2 shots to make it 63-61, but Montini's final play wasn't executed quite the way it was drawn up, leading to an easy stolen pass.
Johnson scored 16, Miller 11, and Rich Bodee 15, but it was all for naught.
"We're still trying to learn what to do down the stretch," Opoka said. "Sometimes we get a little shaky. There's some nerves that go into it and kids having not been in those pressure situations. If we put ourselves in more of these situations we'll start coming out on top."