De La Salle defeats St. Francis

The rims weren’t kind to St. Francis on Wednesday afternoon at the Jack Tosh Holiday Classic in Elmhurst.

Neither was state-ranked De La Salle.

De La Salle showed why it’s the tournament’s No. 1 seed with a 59-39 second-round victory against the Spartans.

St. Francis (7-2) made just 4 of 27 first-half shots, falling behind 29-13 at the game’s midpoint. It never recovered.

“We lost an opportunity to perform a little bit better against a quality team,” St. Francis coach Bob Ward said. “They’re just a really good team, and we didn’t take advantage of a good opportunity.”

Guard Nick Donati led the Spartans with 9 points, and Ryan Coyle added 8.

Gavin Schilling, De La Salle’s 6-8 forward and the reason college coaches like Notre Dame’s Mike Brey and Illinois assistant Jay Price were at York High School, scored 16 points, grabbed 6 rebounds and blocked 2 shots. Alvin Ellis added 16 points for De La Salle.

“The shots didn’t fall, and I think it’s a different look when you’ve got a 6-8 kid coming at you closing out. For as well as we played yesterday, we are still a work in progress,” Ward said.

St. Francis meets Lyons Twp. at 2:30 p.m. Thursday as the tournament continues.