Energetic Arogundade gives Viator a lift at Palatine
It may be Ore Arogundade’s first full season on the varsity, but the sophomore sure doesn’t act like it.
Arogundade carried St. Viator (10-0) through a sloppy first half in leading the Lions to a 67-53 victory over host Palatine (1-8) in nonconference boys basketball action Tuesday.
The swingman scored a game-high 28 points to go along with 15 rebounds and 4 assists. That helped the Lions overcome an opening half in which they turned the ball over 16 times.
“You can see his confidence growing game by game,” said St. Viator coach Mike Howland. “He’s a bit of a matchup nightmare because he can do so many things. We’re counting on him and he’s really done a great job of bringing a lot of energy every night.”
Arogundade scored the team’s first 11 points in helping stake St. Viator to a 13-0 advantage halfway through the first quarter.
“I wanted to come out ready and bring some intensity, set the tone early for our team and just keep feeding off that the rest of the game,” Arogundade said.
The Lions were uncharacteristically careless with the ball, and the Pirates’ scrappy defense helped them battle back from a 19-4 deficit to trail only 26-17 with 1:17 left in the half on Jason Jablonski’s rebound and putback.
“We didn’t do the things that have gotten us to 10-0,” Howland said. “We were super sloppy with a lot of our turnovers. They weren’t aggressive turnovers, either.”
Palatine got its offense going in the fourth quarter as the Pirates outscored St. Viator 9-2 in the first two minutes. Tom Hauert’s 4-point play closed the gap to 45-37 with 6:15 left.
The Pirates’ John Millin got to the basket repeatedly in the final quarter, when he scored 7 of his 14 points in his third game back from an ankle injury suffered at the beginning of the season.
“We started getting to some loose balls that we weren’t getting to in the first half, and we started playing with a little more confidence offensively,” said Palatine coach Eric Millstone. “When we can get five kids playing on the floor with some confidence, we are going to hold some teams accountable.”
The Lions responded as Kevin Walsh (10 points) hit 2 free throws, Arogundade hit a runner and Walsh converted a layup to push the lead back to 14.
Later, Argondade found D.J. Morris (7 points) for a corner 3-pointer and a 60-47 lead with 3:17 left to seemingly put the game out of reach.
“We came out sloppy, and coach got on us,” Arogundade said. “We wanted to keep our heads. We tried to limit our turnovers, and we did in the second half.”
Chris Myjak added 9 points and 8 rebounds for the Lions, who only had 6 turnovers after intermission. auert hit all 7 of his free throws attempts in the fourth quarter to finish with 14 points.