Marshall 71, St. Francis 58

When the final horn sounded the end of Friday's Class 3A sectional title game at Riverside-Brookfield, two different celebrations took place on the gymnasium floor.

On one end you had the top-seeded Marshall Commandos (28-4) collecting yet another sectional title plaque, which they earned with a 71-58 victory over No. 7 St. Francis.

On the other end of the floor, the Spartans players and coaches celebrated a magical postseason run with a large contingent of St. Francis students and fans, most of whom were wearing blue. The fans surrounded the players, coach Shawn Healy and assistant coaches Mike Harper and Bobby Rizzo.

Sure, it would have been nice to have knocked off another power and advanced to Tuesday's supersectional at the Sears Centre, but even with the finality of a playoff loss, it was obvious that these Spartans will remember a whole lot more good than bad when looking back at this 19-10 season.

"Our community has been great to us," Healy said after his squad put up a good fight against the taller, deeper Commandos. "They followed us the last 10 days and we wanted to show our support as a team. This team meant a lot to the fans and this is something we wanted to do."

Of course they also wanted to win, especially senior starters Dan McCoy, Brian McMahon, Jack Purdom and Bob Vonderhaar. Each of them played big roles in bringing the school and the program plenty of positive publicity the last two weeks.

McCoy did all he could on Friday, bombarding Marshall with six 3-pointers en route to scoring a game-high 22 points.

"It's either put them in or go home," said McCoy, who put in back-to-back 3s to open the second half as the Spartans used an 8-0 run to draw even at 30-30. "It's awesome playing teams like Marshall. All of it was an opportunity."

An opportunity to bring both current and former students together, according to Healy.

"I just told the kids, 'You have no idea what this meant to our institution, our alumni, our students.' We were getting texts, voice mails. We were hearing from everyone. People got on a wild ride," Healy said.

The ride started with a double-overtime win in their regional opener, but then the Spartans knocked off traditional power St. Joseph's and then the Chicago Public League's Crane. After knocking off the second and third seeds, St. Francis got No. 1 Marshall, which opened the game with a dunk on its way to an 8-0 lead.

But the Commandos later found themselves in a tie game in the third quarter against this scrappy group of Spartans.

Junior David Palash, the one non-senior starter, scored 9 of his 12 points in the fourth quarter while trying desperately to extend the season at least one more game.

"These guys are like my brothers and I'll miss them a lot next year. I wanted to do all I could for the seniors. We wanted to keep on going," Palash said. "And after the game we just wanted to thank our fans. They've been great."

Vonderhaar, who closed his high school playing days with 6 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists, will always look back fondly at the Spartans' 2008 postseason run.

"It all kind of flew by," he said. "But they were all really fun games and it was fun to be with the coaches. It was all very positive."