Freshman's shot carries St. Charles East past Glenbard West

St. Charles East coach Brian Clodi called the freshman's number.

Kendall Stephens dialed it in.

Coming out of a fourth-quarter timeout, Stephens' 3-pointer off a set play snapped a tie with Glenbard West and was the last of 12 lead changes.

The Saints rolled thereafter, winning 63-57 on Saturday at the host Hilltoppers' Biester Gymnasium in Glen Ellyn.

"Coach called that for me. He just wanted me to hit that shot and I needed to hit it. It happened," said Stephens, who scored a team-high 17 points but hadn't hit from the arc since midway through the second quarter.

"It was just a matter of time before I would make it," he said. "I had a good screener - I'm not sure if it was Jess (Striedl) or Zack (Burns) but he got me open. It was nice to make it."

Clodi's one reservation about the whole shebang was allowing Glenbard West star forward Tyler Warden a game-high 28 points.

The coach certainly enjoyed the steals by Spencer Motley, Striedl and Drew Vazquez that followed Stephens' 3. They helped bump a 51-48 Saints lead to 60-50 with 25 seconds left.

"From then on we just took off," said Clodi, whose squad improved to 5-9 and moved to 3-0 in this nonconference series. "We got three steals in a row after that. When you hit a big shot out of a timeout and you're doing what you're told, they all fed off that."

It was a disappointment for Glenbard West (3-12). It had rallied from a 31-23 deficit early in the third quarter to draw even at 48-48 with 3:34 to play on a Todd Lowery basket.

The 6-foot-7 Warden and 6-6 Michael Mache, who scored 17 points and joined Warden with 9 rebounds, were working it.

"We were trying to use Tyler's height because we had a huge height advantage down in the post, so we were trying to feed it over the top to him," said Hilltoppers guard Nick Burrello.

"We picked up the intensity a lot in the third quarter," said Glenbard West coach Tim Hoder. "I think we put ourselves in a position to win, but we couldn't sustain it."

Sustaining it is what St. Charles East is now all about.

"At the York Tournament we actually set down goals," said Burns, whose 16 points joined Vazquez (10) and Stephens in double figures. "We want to go .500, and we know the only way it's going to happen is that we want it day in and day out more than the other team."