Driscoll stays calm, collects regional win
There's no substitute for playoff experience.
Driscoll's Joey Calabrese has plenty of that, five varsity seasons combined in both football and basketball.
He and the Highlanders could have lost their cool when the Douglass Tigers went from 12 points down at halftime to leading by 4 with less than two minutes to go.
Driscoll tapped its experience under duress to gain a 62-60 victory in a Class 2A Timothy Christian regional quarterfinal Monday night in Elmhurst.
Junior Mario Grana's drive with 48 seconds remaining tied the game 60-60, then Alex Lazar's rebound off a Douglass miss led to 2 Calabrese free throws with 9.7 seconds remaining.
Douglass' Xavier Givens missed a shot and Greg Powell missed the follow, Calabrese claiming the last rebound for No. 4 seed Driscoll (14-12).
"We could have (lost our heads). But I was confident at the line, I was just trying to get there," said Calabrese, who scored 11 of his team-high 16 points in the fourth quarter, going 7 of 7 from the line with a key three-point play.
"I mean, (Austin) Baker and (Matt) Kaban fouled out, so I figured I had to step up. I was confident. I just hit the free throws."
Another savvy Highlander, senior Steven Schwabe, shrug off consecutive 3-point misses to hit a 3 and stem No. 5 seed Douglass' 11-0 third-quarter run. In the fourth Schwabe went 4 of 4 from the line and added a basket for half of his 12 points.
Driscoll made 14 of 17 free throws in the fourth quarter, 27 of 36 on the night. The Highlanders will face No. 1 seed Immaculate Conception - 2-0 against Driscoll this season - at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
"We folded against their pressure during the second half, brought them right back into the game," Schwabe said. "But we stuck to our free throws and hit a lot of them, which eventually won us the game."
Though Driscoll's top scorer Kaban got called for 2 fouls by 4:12 of the first quarter and fouled out with 1:39 left and 5 points, Driscoll led 18-10 after a quarter and 30-18 at the half.
Led by 3 of Xavier Givens' 6 steals and 11 of Michael Baker's game-high 22 points, Douglass (12-8) created 13 turnovers in the third quarter to force a 40-40 tie entering the final period.
The lead volleyed back and forth until Charles Harris hit a 3 and Givens made 2 free throws for a 57-53 Tigers lead with 1:39 to play.
"I thought if we could have held them there and got the ball back, maybe got up 6, we might have been able to pull away," said Douglass coach Brian McManus Jr., who got 19 points from Harris.
Instead Calabrese drove and was fouled while making the shot. He converted the three-point play, then after Givens went 1 of 2 from the line Calabrese sunk 2 more from the line for a 58-58 tie with 1:26 left.
Givens' 2 free throws gave Douglass a 60-58 lead with 1:17 to play, answered by Grana's tying drive with 48 seconds left. The Driscoll junior scored 13 points.
"Our whole focus a lot of times is make the next play," said Driscoll coach Adam Szyszko. "If the last one was a bad one, make the next one. And we did a decent job making the next one tonight. We battled and we hung in there. Regional basketball - survive and advance."