Benet loses in overtime
Carmel senior Brandon Motzel didn't mind that Friday's East Suburban Catholic Conference boys basketball game at Benet turned out to be a low-scoring matchup.
He especially didn't mind that the Corsairs finished on top with a 44-39 upset victory in overtime at Lisle.
"That's all right. We knew it would be low-scoring," Motzel said. "Both of us aren't running teams, so it was about defense. It was a good game."
"It was a tough loss," Benet coach Gene Heidkamp said. "I give Carmel a lot of credit. They played a great game. They played with a lot of toughness, they played very physical and did a lot of real good things. We struggled offensively. Part of that was due to their defense and part of that was we really struggled from the floor."
Defending ESCC champion Benet (11-4, 0-1) led most of the first four quarters, scoring 5 consecutive points to take a 34-28 lead on John Enochs' 3-pointer with 4:07 left in the fourth quarter. But Carmel (6-7, 1-1) held the Redwings to just a Griffin Hanekamp free throw the rest of the period to force overtime.
"That momentum changed," Heidkamp said. "We had plenty of opportunities from there on out. We had plenty of opportunities in overtime, we just weren't able to capitalize on them. We really struggled to put the ball in the basket."
"We got a couple of big stops, a couple of big rebounds," Carmel coach Tim Bowen added. "The other thing is we forced them to beat us at the free-throw line. The scouting reports indicated we might be able to have a chance there."
The scouting reports were right. Benet made just 7 of 21 free throws in the game, 3 of 12 in the final 12 minutes.
In fact neither team shot well. Carmel was 13 of 40 from the floor, 11 of 21 at the free-throw line. That beat Benet's 14-of-51 shooting from the floor.
The teams played nearly 2½ minutes in overtime before either could score, Motzel breaking the tie with a basket. Benet junior Pat McInerney hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 39 with 49 seconds left, but sophomore Ian Kristan responded with a 3-pointer of his own 16 seconds later to give the Corsairs the lead for good.
"That was a big shot, tied it up," McInerney said of his 3, "but we couldn't get a stop on defense, which was what we needed to get."
It was McInerney's first game of the season after recovering from a broken right wrist. The three-year varsity player admitted to being a little winded in his season debut but wouldn't blame the wrist for making just 3 of 12 shots.
"It's great to have Pat back," McInerney said. "I thought Pat really battled tonight, did a lot of great things for us. Our team's only going to get better. Obviously, this is our worst performance of the year, but our kids will bounce back and we'll come out and play better basketball."
Sean O'Mara, a 6-foot-8 sophomore center, led Benet with 14 points, 8 rebounds and 7 blocked shots. McInerney scored 7 points and grabbed 7 rebounds.
Motzel scored 16 points and added 3 blocks. Nickai Poyser came off the Carmel bench to score 11 points.
The strong finish made Bowen optimistic for the rest of his young team's season.
"Maybe this right here hopefully will say you can do it," Bowen said. "Especially a close one against a team like that. The things we've been trying to tell these kids over the last 3-4 weeks, you can do it. You just have to be strong mentally as well as physically at the end of the game. We now know we can do it."