St. Viator overpowers Geneva
St. Viator coach Mike Howland couldn't ask for more from his boys basketball team.
All facets of St. Viator's game were overpowering as they rolled to a 75-35 nonconference victory over Geneva at Cahill Gym in Arlington Heights on Saturday night.
Viator junior forward Patrick Martin and senior guard Kevin Walsh shared the scoring load with 18 and 17 points respectively. Walsh scored 14 in the first half.
"We knew from the get-go that we were capable of being a good team and working together," Walsh said of their 14-2 record. "You have to respect every opponent you play. We believe in ourselves and have the confidence that we will win."
When Viator senior center Chris Myjak and guard D.J. Morris got into foul trouble in the first half, Walsh picked up the pieces with 5-for-7 shooting. Martin knocked down two 3-pointers en route to a 32-11 lead at intermission.
Martin finished 5-of-6 from behind the 3-point arc. As a cohesive unit, the Lions shot nearly 50 percent on 3s (11-for-23).
"We play really unselfish ball," Martin said. "I'm not used to coming off the bench, but as the season has gone on I've been getting more used to the role. This win feels really good and we're going to celebrate tonight."
On the defensive side, Viator didn't lose a drop of adrenaline as Geneva (8-7) scored a mere 5 points in the first quarter. Geneva failed to reach a double-digit point total until 2:47 remained in the first half.
Other contributions by Viator were 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals by Myjak while 6 assists were distributed by junior guard Mayo Arogundade.
"We've been showing what we're all about this weekend," Howland said. "We beat Carmel 66-52 (Friday). Patrick (Martin) didn't get much playing time yesterday, but he was the difference with the foul trouble in the first half.
"We did everything we wanted to do; we got out and ran. It's hard to stop us when we're on the break. We have a lot of weapons."
Geneva pieced together a 7-0 early in the fourth quarter; however after a St. Viator timeout, the Lions took a 20-5 run until the buzzer sounded.
Geneva's top scorer was senior guard Phil Lorenz with 15 points.
"All you can do is play your next game," said Geneva coach Phil Ralston. "We knew the margin for error was not much coming in. We knew we'd have to play a whale of a game. Give (St. Viator) credit, they shot the lights out. We just have to move past a loss like this. We'll focus on West Chicago next."