St. Francis battles to slim triumph over Aurora Christian
The boys basketball battle between St. Francis and Aurora Christian became a brawl of sorts.
“I use the analogy sometimes of it being kind of a heavyweight fight,” said St. Francis coach Bob Ward. “And I thought they won those middle rounds.”
When the final bell, er, buzzer sounded, St. Francis claimed a 56-50 victory in Wheaton. The Spartans remain tied at 4-1 atop the Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division with another Friday night winner, Wheaton Academy. Aurora Christian (12-4, 3-2) fell a game off the pace.
St. Francis (10-3) turned an 11-10 deficit after a quarter into a 31-19 halftime lead. The Spartans got 3s from Nick Donati and Andrew Kimball and 9 of Ryan Coyle’s game-high 14 points after Aurora Christian’s 1-2-2 zone defense had held the 6-foot-6 senior scoreless in the first.
“We felt that if we got it to him, they collapsed on him so well, that we would get skips (passes), and we did. That led to another pass and that led to a 3,” Ward said.
Aurora Christian made just 2 of 11 second-quarter shots, but one was a last-second 3 rattled home by C.J. Schutt, which Eagles coach Steve Hanson said got his team going.
“We just drove more after that,” said Schutt, who scored 8 points with 9 rebounds. “The shots weren’t going, so we’ve got to drive.”
Hanson installed Johnathan Harrell at point guard to fuel an 11-1 run to get within 32-31 of the Spartans at 4:25 of the third quarter, on Cory Windle’s assist to Ryan McQuade.
“I thought in the third quarter they missed a couple shots, we started to rebound a little better, got the ball to Harrell and got it moving, got some easy looks,” Hanson said.
Ward used timeouts to limit momentum, taking two within a minute and a half and another after a Harrell jumper had the Eagles within 41-39 early in the fourth quarter.
“The coaches did a great job keeping us pumped up and fired up to make sure that they weren’t going to come all the way back and win the game,” said Coyle, who grabbed 10 rebounds.
“They told us that this is going to happen, and that we needed to punch them back and not just fall over.”
St. Francis led 49-41 with 3:01 to play but couldn’t put the full-court pressing Eagles away until the last 29 seconds when Nick Donati made 3 of 4 free throws and Brian Spahn made another.
Zach Roswold scored 12 points for St. Francis, while McQuade scored 11 and Ryan Suttle 10 for Aurora Christian.
“I’d say this is one of the bigger games,” Spahn said, “and then just keep grinding it out in the conference from here, hopefully get first place.”