02-21-06
BY JACK BULLOCK
WOODLAWN - From the opening tip Tuesday night at the Woodlawn Class A Regional, the Waltonville Spartans had trouble with nearly every phase of their game.

And like bad cold, the Christopher Bearcats proved a hard opponent to shake.

But like the Spartans have been able to many times this season, they survived yet another cold shooting performance and some defensive breakdowns and figured out a way to advance to the regional title game on Friday.

With Jon Kash providing 17-points and Josh Ralls tossing in 15, coach Mike Denault's club outlasted a hard fighting Bearcats' squad, 57-50, in front of a large crowd at Sides Gym.

Waltonville (28-2) will meet the winner of Wednesday night's Nashville/Du Quoin contest on Friday.

In a 'scrum' ruled by poor shooting and execution by both teams and a 'rugby-like' 46 fouls called and 61 free throws shot, Waltonville made just enough right moves and plays at the end to keep their regional championship hopes alive.

Making 11-of-13 free throws in the fourth quarter, the Spartans now have a shot at winning the school's first boy's basketball regional championship since 1993.

The Spartans struggled from the field, in spite of getting off many seemingly easy shots.

Although Christopher played a great defensive game, Waltonville had many open looks but failed to convert a high percentage of their high percentage shots.

"About all the good you can say about this game tonight is that we survived," said Waltonville coach Mike Denault, who saw his team break the school record for victories with the semifinal win. "We didn't shoot well in either of our losses and tonight we didn't either. We've got to have people stick the ball in the hole and even more than that we allowed them (Christopher) to penetrate and get to the free throw line too much, especially in the first half."

At the outset, it looked like the Spartans weren't going to have much problem dispatching the Black Diamond Conference West Division co-champs.

Five-foot-eleven senior guard Adam Kitowski hit his first shot - a 3-pointer from the right corner - to give his team a quick lead.

In fact all five of the Spartan starters scored in the first quarter as Waltonville had it best shooting frame of the game with a 6-of-12 performance.

Kash scored twice late in the stanza on shots that he normally likes - inside of ten feet.

His second one from the baseline made it 14-9.

But Christopher's Nick Minor, a 6-foot-3 junior, had his way for most of the night and got off to a good start as well.

He scored five early points and his two free throws with :15 left made it 14-11 at the stop.

Seven turnovers between the two schools were a big part of the second quarter stat page.

The Spartans had more miscues (four) than they had field goals (three).

All three of the Waltonville baskets in the second quarter came on the inside as reserve Brandon Spotanski scored the first one on an assist from Derek Tepovich with 6:57 to go until intermission.

That bucket started a conventional three-point play on a made free throw after Minor fouled him.

Kash 'cashed' in on a three-point play of his own later in the quarter forcing Minor's second personal.

But Minor scored eight more points in the quarter as he, and his teammates, took the Spartans best shot and rallied right back.

Starting point guard, 5-foot-8 senior Matt Niblett, isn't known for his scoring offense.

But when left open he can hit a big shot.

Case in point, Niblett nailed a wide-open 3-pointer from the left corner to cut the Waltonville advantage to 22-21 with 4:00 left.

A pair of Christopher scores followed a free throw from Ralls and Kash's second 'paint' bucket to end the first half scoring.

Minor closed the half with a drive to the hoop from the right side to make it 25-24 Waltonville at the break.

The inability to stop the Bearcats from getting to the basket irked Denault.

"We let them get to the foul line too many times by not moving our feet on defense and letting them get to the basket," added Denault. "I didn't feel like we were very focused tonight and I am disappointed in the way that we defended."

Christopher got the lead for the first time since early in the first quarter with five consecutive points.

Zach Thomas hit a pair of free throws and 6-foot-4 senior Will Toney, the one player on the Bearcats roster with enough size to hang with the Waltonville massive frontline, scored on an offensive rebound put back while being fouled by Ralls.

His made charity gave Christopher a brief 29-26 ad.

However Waltonville, as it has many times in this triumphant season, made a run.

Seven unanswered points with Kash scoring four of them gave the lead back to the Spartans for good.

Minor stopped the bleeding temporarily with yet another drive to the goal while being fouled by Ralls. Another freebie cut the lead back to 33-32 at the 3:35 mark.

With Ralls scoring four straight points - on a spin move under the basket and a fast break lay in on an assist from Anthony Lowery - Waltonville led 38-33 heading home.

Ralls scored twice more in the early part of the fourth quarter and Minor hit on a nice drive a pull up jump shot from about 10 feet.

But after that run, the game turned brutally gruesome in a basketball sense..

Most of the fourth quarter resembled an Ohio State-Michigan football game from the 1960's.

More fouls, more free throws, more drama.

In a 2:26 stretch, the two teams shot 14 free throws.

Christopher shot the first eight, making five; Waltonville got the next six, connecting on five.

When the 'three yards and a cloud of dust settled', the Spartans led 49-41.

The contest did get a bit interesting in the final 1:52.

Christopher pressured the Spartans into some mistakes and hit a couple of big shots.

John Martin, another of the seniors who played his last prep basketball game, hit a 3-pointer from the left wing to close the gap to 56-49 with :43 left.

However the Bearcats squandered a couple of late opportunities, missing three late shots including a Minor 3-point attempt that went out of bounds with :16.4 remaining as they closed the book on a very good season.

Waltonville survived a late technical foul called on Lowery and Kash made 1-of-2 free throws at the end to finish the scoring.

Coach Denault's club will play in the programs' first regional title game since 1999 on Friday night.

"We had some matchup problems with them (Waltonville) and that didn't really come out until the end," said Christopher head coach Gary Gischer, whose team finished their season at 18-11. "Our kids battled tonight and they wanted to play them and that says a lot. Some players and teams shy away from challenges these days. I am proud of these kids because they stepped up and wanted to play one of the best teams in the state. We have nothing to hang our heads about."

Finishing 17-of-46 overall from the field (37 percent) and just 1-of-11 from behind the 3-point arc, Waltonville didn't shoot the ball well.

Kitowski followed up Kash and Ralls by scoring 12-points and hitting the teams only 3-pointer.

"We didn't have problems offensively other than we couldn't make shots in the post," added Denault. "We got the ball where we wanted to, we just didn't get enough of them to fall."

The much larger frontline of the Spartans echoed the games' only lopsided stat. Waltonville outrebounded the Bearcats 35-22.

The turnovers were even at 12-apiece but the Christopher mistakes seemed more pronounced as they played from behind all night.

Christopher closed its campaign by hitting just 13-of-43 of its shots overall (30 percent).

Minor led all scorers with 22-points while Thomas added 13.

Toney finished his prep career with five points and eight rebounds for the Bearcats who won eight of their last eleven games counting this season ending defeat.

"He (Minor) brought a strong attitude to us that was outstanding and it rubbed off on the rest of the kids," Gischer added. "He has been nothing but positive for us this season. He always guards the other teams top scorer and tonight I thought he did a good job guarding (Adam) Kitowski. Everyone of our kids showed a lot of heart tonight and you can say that about the rest of the season if you saw us play earlier."

Christopher can count the consolation championship of the Sesser-Valier Holiday Tournament and a share of the BDC West title as major accomplishments.

"Christopher is a good team and they have steadily gotten better throughout the season," Denault said. "Give Coach Gischer and his team credit. They had a good year and they have a good group of kids back for next season."

When talking about Friday night's potential regional title game, Denault thinks his team still has a lot of work to do.

"We still need to get better and get shots to fall. We're excited about getting to play a River-to-River school, either Nashville or Du Quoin, because that will be good for our program," Denault added. "We have got to be able to stop dribble penetration at this level if we are going to compete. We will find out Friday night just how good we are."

	1	2	3	4	-	Final
Christopher	11	13	9	17	-	50
Waltonville	14	11	13	19	-	57

Christopher (50) - Minor 5 1 9-10 22, Niblett 0 1 0-0 3, Palmer 0 0 1-4 1, Thomas 2 1 6-8 13, Toney 1 0 3-5 5, Twitty 0 0 0-0 0, Martin 1 1 1-2 6.
2FG-9, 3FG-4, FT-20-29, PF-25.
Waltonville (57) - Owens 1 0 1-2 3, Ralls 6 0 3-5 15, Tepovich 1 0 0-0 2, Lowery 0 0 5-8 5, Kitowski 2 1 5-7 12, Kash 5 0 7-9 17, Kabat 0 0 0-0 0, Spotanski 1 0 1-1 3.
2FG-16, 3FG-1, FT-22-32, PF-21.
Fouled Out - Toney, Martin - Christopher; Lowery, Waltonville.
Technical Fouls - Lowery, Waltonville.