Talarczyk sparks St. Charles East past rival
A year ago at this time, Ben Talarczyk was not playing high school basketball.
On Saturday night, St. Charles East certainly benefited from his choice to return to the sport.
Talarczyk, a 6-foot-6 senior forward, recorded a double-double with 22 points and 10 rebounds while leading the Saints (6-2, 2-0) to a convincing 69-50 Upstate Eight Conference River Division victory over host St. Charles North (2-4, 0-2).
Not bad for a guy playing in his third varsity boys basketball game.
"He doesn't have a lot of varsity experience," said Saints coach Patrick Woods. "In fact, this is pretty much it as far as experience. He has been great since we've gotten him in the lineup."
Talarczyk scored 11 points in the first 5-plus minutes, connecting on three 3-pointers as the Saints grabbed a 17-10 first-quarter lead.
"I knew we had to come out strong; it's a big game," said Talarczyk. "We needed to get started somehow. I kind of got in a groove and went from there."
Sophomore Justin Hardy (12 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals) helped the Saints extend their halftime lead to 33-21 with a steal and buzzer-beating layup.
Talarczyk added his fourth 3-point basket and a pair of free throws during a 7-0 run that pushed the Saints' lead to 16 at 49-33 with 1:27 left in the third quarter.
"He stepped up and hit some big shots," Woods said of Talarczyk, who hit 7 of 10 field-goal attempts, including 4 of 6 from beyond the arc. "He plays with a lot of confidence and he plays with no fear."
Back-to-back 3-pointers from Armon Osborne and Jake Spaniol enabled the North Stars to cut the deficit to 49-39 after 3 quarters.
St. Charles North trimmed it to 8 at 49-41 on a pullup jumper by Anthony Delisi in the opening minute of the fourth quarter before the Saints put the game on ice with a 12-4 run highlighted by a pair of baskets from J.T. Ford and 4 points from Evan DiLeonardi (13 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists).
"You can't let them hang around because anytime you let them hang around, they usually find a way to get us at their place," said Woods. "It was good all-around team play."
Zach Hondlik added 9 points and 7 rebounds for the Saints.
Michael Schroeder scored a team-high 16 points while Griffin Hammer added 11 points for the North Stars, who shot just 38 percent from the floor (20 of 52), including a subpar 19 percent (5 of 26) on 3-pointers.
"It's our home gym, we should shoot better than we did," said North Stars' coach Tom Poulin. "The bigger thing is that they trust each other and they play together.
"Right now, we don't play together on both ends of the floor. We're not tied together defensively and we don't share the basketball offensively. Until we figure out how to play together, we'll continue to have nights like this."