St. Charles East blows out Evanston
Guarding the opponent's best player is nothing new for St. Charles East junior Evan DiLeonardi. He's embraced the role on this year's Saints and excelled at it.
Tuesday night DiLeonardi found himself matched up with Evanston's 6-foot-4 sophomore Nojel Eastern, regarded as one of the top sophomores in the country with Illinois assistant Paris Parham among others in the crowd to watch.
DiLeonardi held Eastern to 2 points in the first quarter, and after Eastern picked up his second foul he spent the entire second quarter on the bench. Eastern finished with just 9 points while DiLeonardi and Cole Gentry both scored 16 in an impressive 76-47 St. Charles East victory.
"He's one of the better players I've guarded this year especially being a sophomore he's got a lot of talent, a lot of potential," said DiLeonardi, who ranked Eastern and Geneva's Nate Navigato as his two toughest assignments. "He got in foul trouble early, that helped me a little. I just tried to not let him get the ball, play as hard as I could. It worked."
Saints coach Patrick Woods certainly is glad DiLeonardi is on his side.
"He's been a stopper all year," Woods said. "That's a huge thing he's bringing to the table. He's just a tough kid, works hard, and he's an athlete. He has the ability to stay with people. The best part about the whole thing is he's only a junior."
DiLeonardi loves the challenge of guarding Division I quality players and playing in front of college coaches - even if those coaches are there to watch the guy he is guarding.
"Not to try to ruin their future but I see it as I want to make it so they lose all their offers," DiLeonardi said. "That's my goal. If I play hard enough that a coach is like, 'I don't even like this kid (who DiLeonardi is guarding), he's not that good,' that's my goal out there."
After honoring assistant coach Everette Stephens, an Evanston grad, before the game, the Saints came out firing with 24 first-quarter points to take control early. DiLeonardi had 9 points in the quarter and Gentry 7 points and 5 assists.
"We've fallen short in two big ones," Gentry said of losses to St. Charles North and Geneva. "We came into this game treating it like a playoff game, a regional final game. We knew we had to come out focused. We treated it like a big game and we performed well."
St. Charles East extended its lead to 41-26 at halftime. After Eastern scored 5 points early in the third quarter, Gentry quickly put the Saints back in control with consecutive 3s, then an assist to a cutting DiLeonardi for a lay-in.
By the time the quarter ended the Saints were up 58-33 - against an Evanston team that is 16-8.
"When you play as poorly as we did that's going to happen," Evanston coach Mike Ellis said. "They played harder than we did. We got outplayed, we got out-hustled, we got out-coached. All three. We need to be stronger in a lot of areas than we were tonight on both ends of the court. We certainly played soft tonight."
Zach Hondlik and JT Ford put the closing touches on the one-sided win with 7 points in the final two minutes.
The Saints are now 2-2 in their four years playing Evanston.
Gentry added 10 assists to go with 16 points. He now has Division I offers from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Furman came in Monday, and South Dakota State was at the game Tuesday.
"It's definitely a good feeling," Gentry said of the Division I offers. "It's a bit relieving to know you are wanted places. It's been a little bit of weight off my shoulder."
"He's been patient. What happens as we go along we'll see but he's been very patient. He's going to pick what's best for him. Fortunately he's a great student, 27 ACT and a 4.94 GPA he's going to have tons of options," said Woods, who took note of all the college coaches in attendance Tuesday to see Gentry and Eastern.
"At least six or seven," Woods said. "That's been a nice thing to see a lot of coaches coming out. Just goes to show we're playing good competition not just what we're delivering but the people we're playing against are talented as well."