Marmion falls to Crystal Lake Central
Crystal Lake Central’s defense effort gave Marmion trouble all night long.
The Tigers smothered the Cadets for the majority of Friday’s Class 3A Hampshire regional championship basketball game.
In the end the pressure proved just too much as Central took a 60-50 win to claim its first regional crown since 1998. The Tigers will face Rockford East in a semifinal of the Woodstock North sectional at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Marmion, which had not won a regional title since 1977, was just never able to sustain any sort of offensive momentum.
“They weren’t running anything we haven’t seen before,” Cadets guard Eddy Grahovec said. “We have to execute. We let the pressure get to us. We let 1 turnover snowball into 3.”
Grahovec (13 points) struggled to get open looks for the majority of the game with Tigers guard John Nemcek tracking his every more with precision. But the Marmion leading scorer was able to break free during a series at the end of the third and beginning of fourth quarters where he nailed a pair of 3-pointers and hit a layup to give Marmion (15-13) a 40-37 lead. The lead was the first for the Cadets since Central (24-4) went up 16-15 early in the second period.
Grahovec would not score in the rest of the game after turning an ankle and missing a significant portion of the period. But even when he returned to action, he was limited to a single 3-point attempt. The senior finished the game 5 of 13.
“He’s a great shooter and he’s great with handling the ball,” Nemcek said. “I knew once he hit a couple of 3s, I needed to give him more pressure.”
After Marmion went up 40-37, Central went on a 10-0 run led by 4 points off turnovers. Marmion turned the ball over 7 times in the fourth quarter after committing just 9 turnovers in the first 3 quarters.
“When we got some open looks we hit them and that gave us a little energy,” Marmion coach Ryan Paradise said. “But then (Central) had a couple of tough defensive stands. They’re a good defensive team. They put it on us.”
Another aspect Central was able to limit was Marmion’s ability to get the ball into Graham Glasgow. Glasgow, who will be a preferred walk-on on Ohio State’s football team in the fall, scored 10 first-half points but was limited to just 2 in the second half. He did lead all players with 17 rebounds, including 11 in the second half, but struggled to score in the paint.
Marmion scored 24 points in the paint, but Central center Matt Gleixner recorded 4 of his 5 blocks in the second half providing a dominant force for the Tigers.
“They had a lot of help,” Glasgow said. “They were a good help team on defense.”
Chrystal was clutch down the stretch for the Tigers. He finished with 9 of his 14 points in the fourth quarter after Grahovec made his shots.
Nick Scoliere added 10 points for Marmion before fouling out in the fourth quarter.