Benet tops St. Viator for ESCC repeat

With Benet's 61-39 win at St. Viator's Cahill Gymnasium in Arlington Heights on Wednesday night, the Redwings boys basketball team completed back-to-back unbeaten championship seasons in the rugged East Suburban Catholic Conference.

"It's a tribute to the kids," said Redwings coach Gene Heidkamp. "It's tough to go back-to-back seasons with the good teams we play game in and game out. "

The Redwings finished the regular season 27-0 overall and 12-0 in conference play. The host Lions, who were celebrating senior night, dropped to 13-12 and 4-8.

Benet started out strong and led 16-5 after the first quarter. They opened a 25-8 lead with 3:06 left in the half before St. Viator came back to cut the lead to 10 at 25-15 after finishing the quarter with a 7-0 run.

"I give credit to St. Viator," said Heidkamp. "They made the second quarter tough on us."

"We started out strong," said something-special point gaurd Dave Sobolewski, who scored 8 points. "We didn't play a strong second quarter overall but we came out with more intensity in the third quarter."

Benet went on a 21-2 run to start the quarter and led 46-17 with 2:38 left in the quarter.

Pat McInerney scored 7 points in the quarter and Frank Kaminsky 6 points in the run and 9 in the quarter. By quarter's end Benet led 56-25 and the reserves played out the fourth quarter.

Junior forward Kevin Walsh led St. Viator with 12 points, and D.J. Morris had 8.

Kaminsky finished with 15 points and McInerney had 13 points and 8 rebounds.

"Coach (Heidkamp) has prepared us well for every game," added Sobolewski. "We've had a lot of tough games this year. We think the success we had last year gave us confidence, and it carried over to this year. I think the experience he had has made us jell."

St. Viator coach Joe Majkowski was impressed.

"They came out with a vengence in the third quarter," said Majkowski. "They execute and are confident. They are like a machine."