Stevenson hangs on against Dundee-Crown
As Matt Morrissey continues to take athletic strides farther and farther from his brother’s big shadow, the Stevenson sophomore assures it’s not so rough being the little brother of a once-tough linebacker.
For the second basketball game in a row, Morrissey was called “Mike Morrissey” by the PA announcer. Before he became a starting linebacker at Boston College, Mike Morrissey was an all-state high school football player and, according to Stevenson basketball coach Pat Ambrose, once “almost shut down” the great Jon Scheyer of Glenbrook North in a game.
“My brother and I joke about it,” Matt Morrissey said of people calling him Mike. “It’s very funny.”
What’s serious is little brother’s athletic ability. He displayed it again Thursday night, scoring a season- and game-high 14 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, as Stevenson held off pesky Dundee-Crown 58-54 in Lincolnshire for the Patriots’ fifth win in a row.
Stevenson (6-1) held a 41-23 lead after three quarters, but Dundee-Crown (3-3) sank four 3s, including 2 by Kyle Bernhard, and outscored the hosts 31-17 in the fourth.
“It was a tough loss,” said Dylan Kissack, whose 3-pointer got the Chargers within 56-52 with 12 seconds left. “We were down by quite a bit for a while and we made a nice comeback, but there are no moral victories.”
Morrissey, who was an all-conference and all-area safety/wide receiver in the fall, missed Stevenson’s first two basketball games after rolling an ankle in the football team’s state-quarterfinal loss to Glenbard North. He helped the Patriots stave off Dundee-Crown by scoring 6 points, including 2 on a putback of a teammate’s missed free, in the final quarter.
“You always need a player to get the rebounds, play fast and play defense,” Morrissey said. “It worked out for me to get some points today.”
Freshman point guard Jalen Brunson scored 10 points for Stevenson. Mike Fleming, who came in averaging nearly 21 points per game, scored a season-low 9 points. The 6-foot senior took only 5 shots, hitting three, as he looked to distribute the ball more.
Justin Berkson sparked Stevenson at the start of the second quarter. The 5-foot-6 junior guard came off the bench to take a charge and then hit back-to-back 3-pointers, with the second extending the Patriots’ lead to 14-3 with 6:39 left.
“He’s kind of a pest on the ball and does some nice stuff,” Ambrose said. “Justin gives us a little bit of a different look.”
Down 18 points after three, Dundee-Crown heated up, with Bernhard hitting 2 of his three 3s in the first two minutes of the fourth.
Bruce Dantzler scored 6 of his 10 points in the quarter, while Will Stupar netted all 9 of his points in the final 3:35.
“We’re not embarrassed to give up points to Dundee-Crown,” Ambrose said. “They’re a nice team. But we didn’t close.”
Stevenson got 2 big free throws by Fleming with 8.4 seconds left to make the margin 6, before Dundee-Crown’s Brandon Rodriguez hit a shot from the corner just before the final buzzer.
“We kept trucking and we had motivation throughout the fourth quarter,” said Kissack, who had 4 of his 9 points in the fourth. “I think if we would have played as hard (in the first three quarters) as we did in the fourth quarter then we probably would have had a much better chance of winning.”
Rodriguez and Bernhard led the Chargers with 12 and 11 points, respectively. Dundee-Crown trailed 8-3 after the first quarter, committing 7 turnovers.
“I was disappointed with the way we started out early,” D-C coach Lance Huber said. “I thought a lot of that had to do with Stevenson. We had some unforced errors that we have to figure out how to correct. I thought there were some passes that we should have caught and some passes that we shouldn’t have made. They’re a good team. But we have to get better.”