St. Charles East upends Batavia
St. Charles East's boys basketball team celebrated its Senior Night in the best way possible - with a victory.
Recovering from a slow start, the Saints (14-12, 8-4) enjoyed a 32-16 second-half surge to close out the regular season with a 50-40 triumph over Upstate Eight Conference River Division champion Batavia (19-9, 10-2) Wednesday night in St. Charles.
"The difference was coming out with energy," Saints forward Zach Hondlik said of the final 16 minutes. "In the first half, we came out flat and weren't ready to play."
Hondlik (11 points, 5 rebounds) helped fuel the comeback by swatting away an inside shot on the Bulldogs' opening possession of the second half.
At the other end, guard J.T. Ford buried a 3-pointer from the corner and Justin Hardy scored a few moments later on a nifty reverse layup as the Saints cut a 24-18 halftime deficit to 24-23 in the first two minutes of the third quarter.
After Kamontez Thomas (team-high 10 points) connected on a 3-pointer to extend the Bulldogs' lead back to 27-23, the Saints closed out the quarter with an 11-2 run to grab a 34-29 advantage.
The run featured a 3-pointer by junior guard Zach Mitchell (game-high 12 points) that snapped a 29-29 deadlock and put the Saints on top for good.
Defensively, Evan DiLeonardi (6 points, 5 rebounds), James McQuillan (11 points) and Mitchell each recorded blocked shots during the Saints' decisive 16-5 third period.
"We've been preaching defense since Day 1," said Saints coach Patrick Woods, whose team limited Bulldogs leading scorer Canaan Coffey to a season-low 6 points. "Evan did a great job but he also had a lot of help.
"We were working on him (Coffey) coming off that screen because he comes off that curl and pulls up. Fortunately, we've got some long, tall guys and we were able to do something with that."
Two free throws from Michael Fee made it 43-38 with 2:57 left before the Saints sealed the deal with 7 unanswered points, including 4 by McQuillan - 1 of 6 seniors along with Grayson Brucato, Ben Talarczyk, DiLeonardi, Ford and Hondlik.
"It's nice to win on Senior Night - it's great," said Hondlik.
Poor shooting (13 of 39) plagued the Bulldogs, who were also outrebounded 30-13.
"We haven't really done it all year but we made bad decisions with shots," said Batavia coach Jim Nazos. "We had more shots blocked on the perimeter in that game than we've had all season.
"They're a good team. We've got to regroup and come back and play."
Both teams now prepare for next week's Class 4A regional tournament at St. Charles East.
"They had a great year being conference champs," Woods said of the Bulldogs. "Credit them for that - we're just happy to get some momentum going into the playoffs."