Boys basketball: St. Francis stays in control against Lemont, advance to sectional final
If someone were to just look at the surface, they’d wonder how the heck St. Francis got here.
The Spartans basketball team defeated Lemont 52-44 Tuesday night to advance to the Class 3A Hinsdale South sectional championship game. While Lemont made an impressive comeback attempt and got as close as three points in the fourth, St. Francis was in control for a large chunk of the game.
Yet St. Francis entered the playoffs under .500. It is the seventh seed of the sectional and had to knock off top-seeded Joliet Catholic last week on the Hilltoppers’ home court. Heck, even its first-round game against Fenwick was tight.
Tuesday night, leading scorer Tanner Hozian was playing with a facemask from a prior injury, and St. Francis was down a reserve point guard with a concussion.
Yet still the Spartans continue to rise. They’ve won nine of their past 11 contests, including the Cinderella playoff run. Coach Erin Dwyer said the team’s schedule helped prepare them for this postseason.
“We play in the Catholic League Blue, so we’ve played some of the best teams and coaches in the state,” he said. “We purposely try to get the toughest schedule possible. I believe you have to get comfortable, and then you have to make a choice to get better. I thought we’ve done a good job as a program.
“It’s a character thing. In today’s day and age, kids lose three games in a row and they want to shut it down. They faced some adversity, and they showed their fight.
“It’s high-character kids, and we just want another 32 minutes.”
Hozian again led St. Francis on Tuesday with 16 points. Ben Whorlow finished with 15 points.
“We came together as a team tonight,” Hozian said. “We lost to (Lemont) earlier in the season, so we had an extra bit of fire coming into this game. Defensively we were ready, and it was a great game.”
Hozian credited the team’s determination for getting them where they are now.
“Our team has been united these past two or three weeks,” he said. “We got hot and won like seven of our last eight or something. We just stayed together. Middle of the season, we said we were going to define ourselves by two things: grit and unity. That’s what we’ve done. We’ve shown that throughout the playoffs.”
Lemont (19-13) had a season to be proud of regardless of this final contest. The program was already replacing a trio of starting seniors from last year, while star Gabe Sularski transferred last summer. To make it as far as his team did was something coach Rick Runaas took pride in.
“It was not the way we wanted to end it, obviously, but I thought we played well toward the end of the year,” Runaas said. “I just got done telling our seniors we didn’t have one missed practice all season with 15 kids on the team. All 15 were at every practice.
“Adults complain about kids these days. Well, these are great kids. I’ll go to battle with them anytime.”
Ryan Crane finished with 10 points for Lemont, while Zane Schneider and Lucas Glotzbach each had 12.
St. Francis (16-14) will play the winner of Wednesday’s game between Wheaton Academy and Providence. Hozian said the team won’t change how it approaches things regardless of who the opponent is.
“Whether it’s Providence or Wheaton Academy, it doesn’t matter,” Hozian said. “We just have to come out like we have these whole playoffs and keep grinding it out.”