02-27-07
BY JACK BULLOCK
MCLEANSBORO - How long had it been since the Mount Carmel Golden Aces won a boy's basketball sectional game?

Dwight David Eisenhower was president, Elvis Presley was still unknown and RCA had just invented the first color television.

It was March of 1954.

Coach Ryan Haywood and his team knew the significance of their sectional contest on Tuesday night against West Frankfort at the Hamilton County Class A Sectional.

And in the second quarter – the Golden Aces put together an 18-2 run that all but put away the Red Birds in a history-making 66-50 semifinal win.

Somewhere Archie Dees is smiling. The most famous of the former Aces was on that team that was beaten by Mt. Vernon in that 1954 sectional title game.

“All of these kids know about the history and about what had happened before,” said Mount Carmel head coach Ryan Haywood. “This is a big win for our program.”

Jensen Dardeen – the Aces 5-foot-8 junior backcourt ace – scored a game-high 27 points to lead his team to the victory and a 20-10 overall record.

When he wasn't scoring – this junior was feeding his teammates for assists.

Six-foot-seven senior Justin Lewis added 21 points as Mount Carmel now prepares for a rarity in the winter – a sectional championship game.

“Tonight he (Dardeen) was sensational in taking the ball to the basket,” said Haywood, who wasn't even born the last time Mount Carmel won a sectional contest. “This was one of the best games in our school's history.”

Playing without its top scorer Isaiah Simelton – who is sidelined with a partially torn ACL - West Frankfort (20-10) saw its season come to a close with the loss. Coach Kevin Toney saw his clubs season end after winning the school's fourth straight regional title on Friday.

“They (Mount Carmel) are physical, athletic, skilled and well coached and without Isaiah we never got the big run that we needed,” added Coach Toney.

Having battled through a tough Big 12 Conference in Indiana schedule and having lost some games this season in which they had given up late leads – Mount Carmel would have nothing to do with a West Frankfort comeback.

Hitting 9-of-11 fourth quarter free throws – the Golden Aces closed out the Red Birds season and now look forward to taking on the winner of the Vienna-Fairfield semifinal.

West Frankfort – despite being short handed – came out with a big run to end the first quarter with the lead on the scoreboard.

Trailing 15-8 late in the quarter – the Red Birds scored 13 consecutive points which included the first two baskets of the second quarter.

Junior guard Matt Brown converted a conventional three-point play to start the run and his fast break basket closed the first frame at 17-15 West Frankfort.

Alex Gutierrez and Mike Warren each scored points in the lane to open the second stanza for the Red Birds and suddenly Mount Carmel was in a bit of a jam being down 21-15 with 6:39 to go.

However from that point on – Mount Carmel ruled the roost.

West Frankfort would score just twice more in the remainder of the half

In the meantime – Mount Carmel got rolling.

Lewis – an ABV First Team Carbondale Supersectional Area Selection – scored eight points in the MC run.

His second score in the 18-2 run put Mount Carmel back in front 23-21.

His third shot – on a nice hook shot after grabbing an offensive rebound – put his club ahead to stay at 25-23 at the 3:04 mark.

Dardeen scored twice in the second quarter and his drive to the basket on a fast break put his club up 29-23 and forced a West Frankfort time out with 1:12 before intermission.

Lewis took a nifty assist from Dardeen for another score and when Kyle Buss made a steal and converted West Frankfort's fourth turnover of the period into lay up in transition – Mount Carmel's lead had ballooned to 33-23.

Jacob Deisher – a 6-foot-4 junior forward – scored a pair of baskets in the second quarter for Mount Carmel.

“Lewis – for a big kid – has a real nice touch around the basket and he is a good free throw shooter at around 80 percent,” added Haywood. “Deisher is a double-figure scorer for us and he gets overlooked by some teams.”

West Frankfort's Trey Jankanicz finished the first half scoring with a drive in the lane but he and his club limped into the break down 33-25.

Coach Kevin Toney saw his Birds hit just 4-of-12 shots in that second quarter and committed four key turnovers to fuel the Aces run.

“We felt pretty comfortable there at the end of the first quarter but we couldn't sustain it,” said West Frankfort head coach Kevin Toney. “But we couldn't get our shots to fall in a stretch where they (Mount Carmel) made a run.”

West Frankfort managed to hang around in the third quarter – thanks mostly to Gutierrez and his six third quarter points.

All three of the Gutierrez baskets were on offensive rebounds. Unfortunately there were too many offensive rebound chances in the quarter for WF.

The Red Birds were just 4-of-15 from the field and they added four more turnovers in that eight minute stretch.

The third Gutierrez bucket cut the Mount Carmel lead to 39-31 with 2:36 to go.

But Dardeen scored twice more in the quarter and teammate Jason Deisher scored in transition to close out the scoring at 43-33 heading to the final frame.

West Frankfort's Nick Wilburn hit a baseline jumper to cut the Aces lead down to 45-38 with 6:25 remaining.

That was as close as the Red Birds would get the remainder of the contest.

Mount Carmel scored the games' next eight points to pull away.

Dardeen scored six of them on four free throws and then on a fast break on a WF turnover with the assist and steal going to Steven Alka.

The transition basket made the scoreboard read 53-38.

Lewis scored a late basket in the lane on a pass from Dardeen as Mount Carmel closed the game on a 7-0 run.

“He (Dardeen) has played much better in the second half of the season and the difference between this game and earlier in the season was that we finished the game and handled their (West Frankfort) pressure,” added Haywood.

Warren led West Frankfort with 16 points while Gutierrez added 10 for Coach Toney's titans that battled hard but came up way short without Simelton.

The Red Birds hit on just 23-of-60 shots overall and converted only 2-of-10 tries from behind the 3-point arc.

Mount Carmel was 27-of-52 overall as the Aces are clearly not a 3-point launching team as they attempted just two from downtown – missing both.

Deisher followed Dardeen and Lewis with 15 points in the Aces' triumph.

These Golden ones outrebounded WF 33-28 and outscored them by ten from the foul line in hitting 12-of-17 for the game.

“We concentrated on denying the ball to Warren and Deisher did a great job guarding him,” added Haywood. “Deisher made his mark tonight on the defensive end and he helped us out with more scoring like he has done all year. We wanted to challenge their perimeter shots tonight and we did a pretty good job.”

	1	2	3	4	-	F
West Frankfort	17	8	8	17	-	50
Mount Carmel	15	18	10	23	-	66

West Frankfort (50) – Wilburn 1 1 0-0 5, Jackanicz 2 0 0-0 4, Brown 2 1 2-3 9, Campbell 1 0 0-0 2, Gutierrez 5 0 0-0 10, Murphy 2 0 0-0 4, Warren 8 0 0-0 16.
2FG-21, 3FG-2, FT-2-3, PF-20.
Mount Carmel (66) – Buss 1 0 1-2 3, Dardeen 10 0 7-8 27, Browning 0 0 0-0 0, Alka 0 0 0-0 0, J. Deisher 7 0 1-2 15, Lewis 9 0 3-3 21, D. Deisher 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-27, 3FG-0, FT-12-17, PF-11.
Fouled Out – None.
Technical Fouls – None.