St. Francis knocks off Marmion
St. Francis indeed packed the place on Saturday night.
The balcony was lined three-deep with fans of all ages aligned with both the Spartans and visiting Marmion. Every seat was filled. The white-clad Spartans students brought it as always. Cadets backers retorted.
"That was a crazy atmosphere, let me tell you," said St. Francis senior forward Ryan Coyle, honored before the game for surpassing 1,000 varsity points. "That was a lot of fun playing."
Leave it to a veteran to lend perspective.
"It was pretty electric," said St. Francis coach Bob Ward. "And I think sometimes when that happens you kind of lose focus of the fact that you've got a ballgame to play. The band's playing, everybody's out there. I think Marmion kind of realized that they had to play, that the game was starting."
If St. Francis (14-5, 5-2) did not start focused trailing 14-11 after a quarter and 21-19 at halftime it finished that way. The Spartans allowed 4 fourth-quarter points and forced 13 second-half turnovers to win the Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division contest 48-39 in Wheaton.
"If we're not shooting very well and we weren't executing our sets very well we certainly can't turn the ball over and that's what was happening," said Marmion coach Ryan Paradise, whose leading scorer, Pete Stefanski, was held to 5 points by Spartans senior Brian Spahn.
"They were on the attack the whole second half, they got to the loose balls, they got the offensive rebounds. That's how you lose games," said Paradise, his team now 12-10, 4-4.
Marmion's Alex Theisen scored 7 of his 15 points late in the third quarter to earn a 35-35 tie. Coyle answered with a 3 from the top of the key to send St. Francis into the fourth up 38-35. His 17 points led all scorers.
Theisen canned another 3 to again tie, but St. Francis' Nick Donati converted a steal for a basket. Coyle turned a putback into a three-point play, then penetrated Marmion's 2-3 zone and kicked it out to Andrew Kimball for a 3 for a 46-38 Spartans lead with 2 minutes, 41 seconds left.
"That's what we practice, draw two defenders in and kick it out to our 3-point shooters," said Donati, who scored 7 points and took 2 charges. We weren't hitting them in the first half, but then we figured, get the zone to shift and we hit some big shots at the end."
Mired in 1-of-11 fourth-quarter shooting, Marmion made only a free throw in the last 5:28.
"It was straight up man (defense), they didn't really do anything special," said Cadets guard A.J. Friedman. "They didn't go on a big run or anything. They just slowly kept getting away from us, and we couldn't hit that big shot to bring us back."