Boys basketball: Waubonsie Valley routs Marmion, now 3-0
Waubonsie Valley coach Andrew Schweitzer certainly has lofty goals for his 2024-2025 team.
"Our motto is there are no limits," said Schweitzer. “We can go wherever we want to go."
With high expectations, the Warriors led by 3-year varsity starter senior Tyreek Coleman, cruised past Marmion Academy 59-28 in Friday night's 49th annual Ken Peddy Windmill Classic game hosted by Batavia.
"I am a senior and being the point guard as a sophomore I have been a leader for 3 years," said Coleman. “I hold players accountable and I am a leader for the younger players."
Schweitzer praises Coleman.
"Tyreek is a special player," said the Warriors coach. "He is a great leader and he is like another coach on the floor. He makes suggestions and helps out the younger players."
Making its first 6 shots, Waubonsie Valley (3-0) jumped out to a 13-0 lead and never looked back against Marmion. During that run, Coleman scored 9 points and Kristopher Mporokoso canned a 3-pointer.
Marmion's (2-2) first points came on a 3-pointer by David Malley with 3:43 left in the initial quarter to make the score 13-3.
Connecting on 15-of-25 shots for 60%, the Warriors led 34-15 at halftime.
Coleman scored 11 and Moses Wilson 7 as the Warriors led by 19 after 16 minutes.
All of the Cadets’ 15 points came on 3-pointers. Malley drilled two 3-pointers and Matt Murray, Ali Tharwani and Caden Anderson each made a 3.
For the game, Marmion made 7-of-23 from 3-point range for 30%; the Cadets made just 2 two-point field goals.
"We are going to shoot a lot of 3s," said Marmion coach Joe Piekarz. “They (Waubonsie Valley) are very long and very deep. There were no openings to get the ball inside. We have a young team and playing a team like Waubonsie Valley this early in the season it is a welcome to the varsity 32 minutes. We hope our younger players will keep improving. I like we are playing hard for 32 minutes. The effort is there."
Coleman led the Warriors with 17 points and Josh Tinney added 15.
"I like where we are defensively," said Schweitzer. “We have some work to do offensively especially in the half court."
Batavia 78, Marmon 41:
It was just one of those days where everything went right for Batavia’s Jax Abalos.
With the clock winding down at the end of the second quarter, the Batavia senior forward found himself on the receiving end of an inbound pass and right near the 3-point line.
So he stepped behind the arc, jumped up, and let the ball fly as the clock neared 0.0.
The result? Nothing but net.
“Coach is always talking about how we don’t want to let the other team get a shot at the half,” said Abalos, a Cornell commit. “When we do it, it’s like a shot in the arm. You just get it to another level, and come into the third quarter boosted and ready to go.”
Abalos’s 3-pointer secured a double-double for the night, as he finished with 18 points and 14 rebounds to lead the Bulldogs to a 78-41 victory over Marmion during Day 3 of the Ken Peddy Windmill City Classic.
The shot at the buzzer ended up putting the Bulldogs up 44-19, marking the end of a quarter where they went on a 22-5 run.
“There was just a lot of good things that went well for us,” Bulldogs coach Jim Nazos said. “Shooting well helps everything, but I think we were in the right spot defensively most of the time. Marmion got some good looks, but they were contested. But it’s a good win while we’re putting ourselves together here.”
Alongside Abalos, senior forward Payton Wolff set the pace for the Bulldogs in the first half, putting up 16 points in the game, all of them coming in the first half.
“Payton was kind of our secondary guy last year, who didn’t see the floor a lot because we had a lot of seniors,” Nazos said. “He’s worked extremely hard over the summer and the fall. And I think everybody knows about Abalos and how he makes a lot of plays for us. So I’m happy for those guys.”
Batavia (2-0) found a lot of success in their rebounding game both on offense and defense. The Bulldogs finished the night outrebounding the Cadets 41-15.
“In practice, we really emphasize securing the rebounds, going to get the ball and playing hard every time,” Abalos said. “So getting and those second-chance points is definitely a huge game-changer for us.”
Marmion (2-1) suffered its first loss of the season. Marmion coach Joe Piekarz said that he felt that his young team was just outpaced for most of the night.
“The game was just going too fast for us tonight,” Piekarz said. “We have a lot of young guys out here who are getting their first varsity experience. This was our first real test against a quality program like Batavia, where we knew we were going to have to speed everything up, but it was just going way too fast for us.”
Piekarz said he saw some flashes of brilliance like from sophomore Dave Malley, who led the team with six points to go with two assists and three steals. Junior Ali Tharwani also had six points for the Cadets.
“That’s what’s going to happen with a team like this,” Piekarz said. “We’re going to have some good flashes, and we’re going to have some that aren’t. We just have to remind ourselves that it’s only Game 3 of 31.”
— Joel Boenitz, Shaw Local News Network