St. Francis stuns Marmion at buzzer
It was an ending you had to see to believe — but of all the people crammed into Marmion’s gym Friday night for an early season Suburban Christian Conference test, the one person who didn’t see it was St. Francis coach Bob Ward.
As Brian Spahn soared in for the winning layup with 2 seconds left after Ryan Coyle’s steal on the other end and pass ahead capped a game-ending 10-0 run in the Spartans’ improbable 59-57 win, Ward couldn’t bare to look.
“You are kind of caught up in watching the deflection and I see the steal and all of sudden there is No. 1 (Spahn) with nobody there and I really couldn’t look,” said Ward, whose team’s lead at the buzzer was their first since the first quarter. “I had to hear the crowd.”
That crowd went nuts, at least the St. Francis (5-1, 2-1) half. Marmion (4-5, 2-1) appeared to have the game won, going up 57-49 with three minutes left on a jumper by Pete Stefanski and then rebounding a St. Francis miss.
But the Cadets didn’t score again. They turned it over — the first of 4 turnovers on their final 5 possessions — and Coyle nailed a 3 to trim their lead to 57-52.
Coyle came up with another steal, then hit a 3 from even deeper to make it a 57-55 game with 1:46 to go.
Marmion missed from point-blank range, but Jeff Garofalo’s steal gave the Cadets the ball back and a chance to hold until they were fouled — only Marmion was whistled for traveling. Andrew Kimball made the Cadets pay when he was fouled on a drive with 29 seconds left and calmly sank both free throws with Marmion’s student section in the background to tie the game at 57.
Marmion again tried to hold the ball for the last shot. Garofalo started to drive and passed into the lane where Coyle came up with the ball with about six seconds to go.
The Spartans had one timeout left, but Coyle took a dribble and saw Spahn breaking free ahead of him. Coyle made the pass ahead, Spahn gathered and laid in the game-winner, the final second ticked off the clock and the St. Francis students stormed the court to celebrate.
“That was insane,” Coyle said. “Just a great team effort and a great team play. Brian did a great job running the court and was wide open. I did the easy part.”
While Ward couldn’t look at Spahn’s game-winner, his counterpart Ryan Paradise couldn’t believe how the last three minutes spoiled what had been almost four quarters of good basketball.
Paradise shook up his starting lineup, inserting Garofalo and A.J. Bohr. A.J. Friedman, Johnny Peters and Alex Theisen combined for 20 points off the bench while Garofalo came alive with three 3-pointers in the third quarter. The Cadets played with the lead nearly all night, from 12-11 after one quarter to 29-24 at halftime and 50-46 after three.
“The game is determined in the last couple minutes,” Paradise said. “You can play 30 minutes of phenomenal basketball but if you can’t close that’s what’s remembered. That’s what we need to work on.”
Marmion played a 2-3 zone and St. Francis a man. Both offenses had some success and good shooting, combining to go 17 for 20 at the free-throw line and hitting 19 3-pointers. St. Francis went 6 for 10 from the arc in the first half yet still trailed by 5 at halftime.
Ward liked how the Spartans’ aggressive defense wore the Cadets down as the game went on, forcing 13 turnovers in the second half after just five in the first. St. Francis had one word written on its blackboard in its locker room — perseverance.
“You want to talk about perseverance, we went right to the bitter end,” Ward said. “I felt those last three minutes that we got them on their heals. I thought our pressure man resulted late in some big tips, some big deflections, some big steals. And we had some kids step up and shoot the ball well.”
Coyle led the balanced Spartans with 15 points. Kimball scored 14, Spahn 13 and Nick Donati 12.
Only Garofalo with 12 points hit double figures for the Cadets. Colin Kavanaugh (9 points), Stefanski (8), Friedman (8), Theisen (8) and Ryan Glasgow (6) all chipped in for what Paradise will use as a learning experience.
“You are going to have games where you are tested by fire and we didn’t pass this one but maybe it will help down the road,” said Paradise, whose team heads to the DeKalb Chuck Dayton tournament for the first time next week. “You hate to go through the lumps in games. In December it’s not the end of the world. Hopefully it will pay dividends.”