12-29-05
BY JACK BULLOCK
SESSER - The game of basketball is pretty simple.

You have to put the ball in the basket more times than the other team.

On Friday night at the Sesser-Valier Holiday Tournament, two unbeaten teams squared off in a championship bracket semifinal and one of the clubs found out just how tough it is to win big games when you don't shoot the ball well.

Goreville, despite playing a solid defensive game, struggled offensively from the field and it was reflected in the final outcome.

Going scoreless for nearly eight minutes in the second half, the Blackcats saw their undefeated season go out the window.

Waltonville came up with a great defensive effort as well and made just enough shots from both the field and the free throw line to stay unbeaten.

Behind Adam Kitowski's team-high 14-points and a Goreville 15-of-66 shooting night, the Waltonville Spartans are still without a loss after a 55-46 win in front of a packed house at SVHS.

Holding Goreville to just four points in a pivotal third quarter, coach Mike Denault's Spartans are now a win away from the school's first Sesser-Valier Holiday Tournament championship.

"Our defense really stepped up in the second half tonight and we made them play more of a half court game," said Denault, whose team now sits at 12-0 on the season. "We got a hand in their shots tonight and each team caused matchup problems."

In spite of being outrebounded by the Blackcats 31-28, Waltonville's size in the middle forced Goreville into more of a possession game, which is not the style coach Todd Tripp wants his team to play.

"They (Waltonville) did some things tonight and forced us to take some bad shots especially in the second half," said Tripp, whose team is now 9-1 after tasting defeat for the first time in 2005-06. "We struggled in our half court offense and it showed in how poorly we shot. We did a good job rebounding tonight but we didn't get the run outs that we should have. They got back on defense and kept us from getting many easy scores."

Foul trouble, that has plagued the Spartans for most of the season, reared its ugly head once again in this game.

Jon Kash, Waltonville's 6-foot-5 senior forward, found himself on the Waltonville bench just 2:47 into the first quarter after picking up his second foul.

But in an offensive way, his departure turned into a blessing in disguise as 6-foot-8 senior Brandon Spotanski stepped onto the court and into an important role in the outcome of the contest.

Trailing 8-3 early in the first quarter, Waltonville rallied on the strength (literally) of Spotanski.

He muscled in for six quick points.

On back-to-back possessions, Spotanski scored twice as Goreville was bewildered in trying to stop him.

Scoring on a shot in the paint and also on an offensive rebound putback, Spotanski gave Waltonville its first lead of the game at 11-10 with 2:29 to go before the first horn.

"He (Spotanski) is just so big in there that we can't match up with that," added Tripp. "Their size was a problem for us tonight on both ends of the floor."

An Anthony Lowery score on a short shot in the paint ended the first quarter at 13-12 Waltonville.

While the game remained tight throughout the second quarter, Goreville began racking up missed shots at an alarming rate.

The Blackcats scored the first six points of the second quarter.

Eric Duran scored on a rebound basket and Justin Hood found the mark on a drive to the basket. When Brandon Rogowski hit a pair of free throws, Goreville led 18-13 at the 6:36 mark.

But Waltonville's defensive effort began to take a toll on Goreville the remainder of the half.

After a Duran fast break lay in courtesy of a Rogowski assist and two additional Rogowski free throws, Goreville couldn't find the basket for the next 7:25 of play carrying over into the second half.

The Spartans erased the Goreville advantage with seven unanswered points to finish off the second quarter.

Six-foot-seven junior Josh Ralls hit two free throws, followed by a Lowery 3-pointer.

Ralls scored again on an offensive rebound while being fouled by Goreville's Jason Robertson.

Even though Ralls missed the charity shot with :04.2 left, the Spartans had the 'Big Mo' on their side heading into the locker room with a 26-24 lead.

Waltonville came out of the intermission firing in the first six points of the third quarter.

Adam Kitowski, the Spartans point guard and top point scorer for most of his career at Waltonville, began to shake free from the Blackcats' 'box-and-one' defense.

He hit a pair of shots in the frame that helped his team gain some distance.

Playing with three fouls after picking up an over the back call early in the second half, Jon Kash added two baskets in the third quarter for Waltonville.

Coach Tripp's club kept firing away at the basket but couldn't muster a score until the 2:45 mark when Rogowski connected on a baseline drive. But by that time, the Spartans had taken a 32-26 lead.

Hood scored on another drive to the basket late in the quarter. One of the Blackcats' senior leaders, that basket turned out to be his final one of the night as he fouled out early in the final period.

Kitowski finished off the quarter with a pull up shot in the lane just beating the buzzer sending the teams to the final quarter at 36-28.

Goreville's Robertson nailed a 3-pointer just eight seconds into the fourth quarter to cut the lead down to 36-31.

However that would be as close as the Blackcats could get to the lead as Waltonville pulled away.

The Spartans scored eight of the next ten points to reach a double-digit lead for the first time.
Kitowski scored twice in the run.

The biggest shot was a 3-pointer from the left wing that got the Spartans rolling.

A fast break lay in by Kitowski and an additional free throw by Spotanski made it 44-33 with 5:32 remaining.

The score could have ended up even more lopsided had Waltonville shot a bit better from the foul line, especially in the fourth quarter.

Coach Denault's team hit on just 10-of-22 from the stripe in the final eight minutes.

But they did just enough to get by on this night.

After Goreville's final push to the lead, a pair of free throws by Rogowski got the score down to 45-40, Waltonville put the outcome away for safe keeping.

Scoring the next five points including a Jon Kash transition basket and a Ralls free throw, the lead was once again ten points at 50-40.

Showing some frustration late in the contest, the Blackcats were assessed two technical fouls from the bench when the game was already decided.

Kitowski hit 3-of-4 free throws with just :03.2 remaining to end the games' scoring.

"I thought that Jordan Kabat did a great job on Rogowski tonight," Denault said, referring to the 6-foot-2 juniors defensive work. "It was a great defensive effort all around but I would like to stay out of foul trouble. We had to go small in the second quarter and we didn't do a good job of boxing them out."

Waltonville was 18-of-41 (44 percent) from the field and just 2-of-9 from behind the 3-point line.

After Kitowski's 14, Ralls and Spotanski each added 12.

Goreville was paced by Rogowski's 15 and Duran's 13.

Coach Tripp's club struggled mightily against the Spartans, hitting just 3-of-14 shots from long-range and committing 14-turnovers.

"It is a game that we will learn from. We can take a lot of what we did tonight and work toward getting better," explained Tripp. "Without shooting the ball well and scoring some points, we couldn't get into our press as much as we would have like to. We got beat by a good team tonight."

The Spartans will match their 12-0 mark Friday night in the Sesser-Valier title game against Vienna (13-0) a 60-48 winner over Sparta in the upper bracket semifinal.

"We needed a game like this and we haven't had any big games so far and we need to get better at handling situations," finalized Denault. "Spotanski carried us tonight, especially in a stretch early when Goreville was doing a good job on Kitowski with the 'box and one."

	1	2	3	4		Final
Waltonville	13	13	10	19	-	55
Goreville	12	12	4	18	-	46

Waltonville (55) - Owens 0 0 0-2 0, Ralls 3 0 6-10 12, Tepovich 1 0 0-0 2, Lowery 1 1 1-2 6, Kitowski 3 1 5-8 14, J. Kash 2 0 0-0 4, McGovern 0 0 1-4 1, Kabat 1 0 2-2 4, Spotanski 5 0 2-4 12.
2FG-16, 3FG-2, FT-17-32, PF-17.
Goreville (46) - Stone 0 1 0-0 3, Hood 2 0 2-2 6, Robertson 1 1 3-4 8, Duran 4 1 2-4 13, Parmley 0 0 1-3 1, Rogowski 5 0 5-5 15, Fox 0 0 0-0 0, Billingsley 0 0 0-0 0, Madden 0 0 0-0 0..
2FG-12, 3FG-3, FT-13-18, PF-23.
Fouled Out - Hood, Goreville.
Technical Fouls - Coach Tripp, Goreville; Goreville Bench.