St. Charles East will need to handle Auburn's pressure
How St. Charles East handles a particular aspect of Rockford Auburn's game in Friday's Class 4A Rock Valley College sectional final will determine if the Saints equal their deepest playoff run since 2001.
"We've got to handle pressure," St. Charles East coach Patrick Woods said after his team dispatched Prairie Ridge 68-46 in Wednesday's semifinal, "and I think if we handle pressure, we'll be in a good spot."
Auburn (23-6) ran away from Fox Valley Conference Valley Division champion Jacobs (23-7) in Tuesday's semifinal by pressuring the Golden Eagles into 11 of their 21 turnovers in the third-quarter. That fueled a 20-6 run that helped the Knights break away from what had been a 1-point halftime lead.
"We are what we always are in that we are going to play a full-court, man-to-man game," Auburn coach Bryan Ott said. "We are going to be very aggressive in that, looking to run."
Said Jacobs 6-foot-9 junior Cameron Krutwig after his team was overwhelmed 59-40 by Auburn's full-court pressure and pass-denying man-to-man defense: "That's some serious heat."
The Saints are better equipped to handle such heat than Jacobs, which started a pair of sophomore guards. St. Charles East (18-12) counters with the fluid ballhandling of senior point guard Evan DiLeonardi and fourth-year varsity guard James McQuillan. The sure-handed Saints entered the postseason with nearly as many assists (353) as turnovers (372).
"It's going to be a good game," McQuillan said of the sectional final, which tips at 6:30 p.m. "They are fast, they are athletic. They are going to pressure us and we have to be ready for an all-out war.
"We're confident. We know if we play hard, play our game, we should be just fine. Our coaches are amazing. They will get us the scouting report, get us a great game plan, which we will try to follow as best as we can."
Playing in their hometown of Rockford, the Knights seek their ninth sectional title and fourth in six years. Auburn finished third in Class 4A in 2011-12, led by guard Fred Van Vleet, now a senior at Wichita State. Ott has managed to keep the program at a high level since, going 97-26 the last four seasons.
The Knights lost to Geneva in a sectional title game last season, 65-62, but this Sweet 16 appearance is a surprise even to Ott, whose team returned only sixth-man Trayvon Tyler. The senior point guard leads Auburn with 19 points per game and averages nearly 6 assists and 5 steals.
The Knights have gotten unexpected lifts from 6-1 guard Juwane Parchman (9 ppg), a football player who came out for the team as a senior, and 6-5 senior Shidaye Evans. Ineligible for the first half of the season, Evans led Auburn with 22 points against Jacobs.
"We came into this season completely inexperienced except for Tyler," Ott said. "He's a three-year varsity player, but he's always been in the shadow of some really stellar kids. It's not that we didn't know what we had, but he was kind of stuck."
St. Charles East seeks its fifth sectional title, its first since 2001, when then-coach Jerry Krieg led a team that included Brian Schmit and Eric Regan to the Class AA Elgin sectional title with a come-from-behind win over a Bartlett squad led by Anthony Maestranzi. Those Saints advanced to the NIU supersectional at Chick Evans Field House, which they lost to West Aurora, 63-59.
St. Charles East returned several players from the 2014-15 team that won 24 games and shared the UEC River title, but an injury riddled regular season led to mixed results.
Guard Zach Mitchell broke his wrist in the fourth game of the season in November and didn't return to the lineup until early January. Sophomore forward Justin Hardy (6-5) missed multiple December games due to a concussion. McQuillan returned to the lineup last month after fracturing his foot on Dec. 6.
Once the Saints returned to health late in the campaign, they defeated the two teams ahead of them in the UEC River standings: Batavia and Geneva. They proved it was no fluke by beating both rivals again in the postseason to win a regional title on their home floor, their first since 2007.
Unfortunately Mitchell, who led the Saints with 17 points in the regional title win over Batavia, was out of the lineup again on Wednesday after undergoing a Sunday appendectomy. If he is unable to return for the sectional final, the balanced Saints will miss his 7.9 points per game but can still attack in multiple ways. They entered the postseason led by Hardy (12 ppg, 6.3 rpg), 6-4 senior guard J.T. Ford (11 ppg), DiLeonardi (10.1 ppg, 3.8 apg), 6-6 senior forward Zach Hondlik (9.2 ppg) and McQuillan (7.4 ppg).
"We always talk about peaking at the right time and not to worry if it's not going well in the beginning," Woods said. "We're definitely playing our best."
The winner advances to the Hoffman Estates supersectional at the Sears Centre on Tuesday at 8 p.m. against the winner of the Fremd sectional between Conant (22-6) and Lake Zurich (24-9).