St. Edward falls to Joliet Catholic

The importance of the close of the second quarter and the start of the second half cannot be overstated in a boys basketball game.

"It's a cliché, but it's on my blackboard before every game," Joliet Catholic coach Joe Gura said after his squad hit St. Edward with a 14-point unanswered burst bridging the middle quarters en route to a 66-47 victory Tuesday night in the Burney Wilkie Classic at Aurora Christian.

"St. Ed's played us really tough. If you take those four or five minutes away, it's a really competitive game."

"It was a 3-point game (19-16, when the Hilltoppers scored the final 8 points of the first half)," St. Edward coach P.J. White said. "We went into the locker room kind of down in the dumps a little bit."

Joliet Catholic guard Jalen Jackson, who pumped in a game-high 26 points, converted a driving layup as the second-quarter expired to give the Hilltoppers a 27-16 halftime lead.

The Hilltoppers (1-0) then scored the first 6 points of the third quarter to more than double their cushion to 33-16.

St. Edward (3-2) would never threaten single digits the remainder of the game.

"They were stronger than us," said St. Edward junior guard Kelvin Cortez-Harvey, who had 13 of his team-high 16 points after the intermission. "It was a bad matchup for us. They just outplayed us. (The late second-quarter run) hurt us really bad. We had some defensive errors."

Adam Radcliffe hit a pair of free throws to end the Hilltoppers' run almost three minutes into the third quarter, but the Green Wave would have few solutions for Jackson as the senior hit all of his fourth-quarter shots to accentuate his game-high performance.

Joliet Catholic sixth-man Donovan Finch sparked the team early with 10 points in the opening half in augmenting Jackson with 14 points.

Cortez-Harvey had a late third-quarter field goal in transition to bring St. Edward within 13 points, but the squad would come no closer the remainder of the game.

The Green Wave ultimately scored more points in the final quarter - 19 - than it would manufacture in the opening half.

But it was not nearly enough as the Hilltoppers' considerable size advantage was insurmountable.

"We were outgunned, so to speak," White said.

St. Edward senior forward Sean Phelan also had a productive second-half for the Wave, tallying 11 of his 15 points after the break for the Wave.

Andrew O'Neill had all 7 of his total points on 3 second-quarter field goals for St. Edward. Radcliffe pitched in with 6 more for St. Edward.