Boys basketball: Stack’s last-second free throw sends Benet past DePaul Prep back into Class 4A title game

Colin Stack and Benet had plenty of time to ponder their final possession during five timeouts in the final seconds Friday.

But then it was just him and the rim.

Benet’s 7-foot-1 senior had one free throw to send his team to the state championship game, stakes Stack had never faced. How’d he handle it?

“I have to give credit to my teammate Ryan Walsh. He said ‘It’s just in an empty gym,’” Stack said. “That’s what went through my head. I missed the first one but I just blocked it out, focused on the second.”

Stack swished the second, with 1.1 seconds left.

Benet survived a wild finish — a blown six-point lead in the final three minutes and those five timeouts at the end — to beat DePaul Prep 39-38 in the Class 4A semifinal at State Farm Center.

Perry Tchiegne forced a steal to set up the last possession as Benet (36-1) advanced to play for its second consecutive state title on Saturday night against East Suburban Catholic Conference rival Marist.

DePaul Prep (32-4), going for a fourth straight title after two in Class 3A and one in Class 2A, forced Benet turnovers on three straight possessions.

The second one turned into a Rykan Woo assist to Rashaun Porter with the tying basket with two minutes left.

“The story of the game was our resiliency,” Benet coach Gene Heidkamp said. “We didn’t play very well in the last few minutes and give them all the credit in the world for forcing that. But even when we coughed up the six-point lead we still made the big stop.”

After that third Benet turnover, DePaul Prep tried to milk the last minute off the clock for the final shot. But Tchiegne knocked the ball away on a drive and Wright got the steal.

“It was just being familiar with the play and giving us a chance to win,” Tchiegne said.

DePaul Prep fouled Benet’s Edvardas Stasys as he had a clear path to the basket at the other end, setting up the final possession with 2.4 seconds left, inbound underneath the basket.

And then the chess game began. The teams traded five timeouts.

“We changed the play 15 times,” Heidkamp said. “Their defense is so good and it’s hard to get the ball near the rim with Porter and [Gus] Johnson and their length. We kept changing what we’re doing. One time we had a play in and the player that we had checked in that we were trying to get the ball to had not checked in the game.”

DePaul Prep coach Tom Kleinschmidt called the last timeout.

“He kept changing and I changed,” Kleinschmidt said. “We didn’t know if we wanted size on the ball. And then they put Wright taking it out. Every time they changed who was taking it out, we changed.”

Finally, Benet went with a play Heidkamp hadn’t even designed.

“Ed came to me in the huddle and said ‘Let’s run a little action,’” Heidkamp said. “That’s not a play we have. That’s Ed and Colin making it up and Jayden throwing the ball toward and rim and it worked out about as well as it could.”

Wright lobbed it for Stack, and Porter got him on the arm on a shot in front of the rim.

“It was basically Ed screening for Colin and I was going to try to throw the ball to Colin,” Wright said. “I have a lot of trust in Colin, I’m going to put it in a place he can get.”

Wright finished with 11 points, Stasys had 10 points and 10 rebounds and Stack nine for Benet, which outrebounded DePaul Prep 26-16. Porter scored 14 points and Rykan Woo 11 for DePaul Prep.

The largest lead either way was six points in a game dictated by defense between two teams that know each other well.

Benet beat DePaul Prep in the Pontiac final, but the familiarity runs deeper.

“We weren’t going to be able to score, they weren’t going to be able to score. We knew that. We know their stuff, we know what they run, we’re both competitors, we’re both state champions,” Kleinschmidt said.

“My brother is on their bench, Gene said my dad’s eulogy, nothing was getting by anybody.”

Benet now gets another familiar opponent in its bid for a repeat state title, Marist, in the final year of the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

Benet beat Marist 77-68 in the conference’s last regular-season game.

“How ironic, first time downstate two teams are playing in the state championship and the league is over,” Heidkamp said.

“I haven’t spent too much time thinking about it [the repeat]. It’s cheesy, but all year we’ve just worried about the next game. Outside expectations, we block that out. We’re going to do what we can to get ready and give it our best shot.”