ELMHURST Guerin was hoping that Friday’s game against Timothy Christian would be a repeat of the battle the teams waged on Dec. 12, when the Trojans escaped with a slim 39-33 win.
The excitement never materialized, however, as the Trojans controlled the game from the start, opening with 11 straight points while cruising to a 61-30 Metro Suburban East victory in Elmhurst.
“When you play a good team like this to a six-point game like the last time we played them, and then you come to their place, they are going to be mad,” Guerin coach Tim Bowen said. “They are going to prove a point and they are going to punch you right in the lights the minute you walk on the floor, and that is what they did.
“They were physical, they were crashing the boards; they were jamming our rebounds. Every shot we took was a contested shot.”
The Gators (8-13, 2-6) did not make a shot in the first quarter and went scoreless until Francisco Foley hit a pair of free throws about seven minutes in.
“We knew coming into the game that we had to be aggressive,” Guerin guard Adam Castro said. “But our shots were not falling. You have to give credit to them; they are a great team.”
Castro had five of his team-high 10 points in the second quarter when the Gators scored five straight and cut their deficit to 15-8. It was as close as they would get the rest of the night.
“We got into a [little] rhythm, being able to see what they were doing on defense,” Castro said. “We are going to have our off days, but it is nothing we have to worry about. We just need to keep being aggressive. The shots were there, they just were not falling for us.”
Guerin carried a two-game winning streak into the game, with victories over Juarez and Elmwood Park.
“We have been playing really well lately,” Bowen said. “Part of tonight was that some the kids went back on their laurels. They did not know that this was going to be a little bit of a fight; and they did not put up a very good fight in the first quarter.”
The Trojans (10-10, 6-2) were led by senior guard Riley Chapman, who knocked down five 3-pointers in the first half and led all scorers with 19 points.
“You have those kind of nights when you are just feeling it, stroking each one,” Chapman said. “After you hit one, the next one becomes easier each time, and that opens up my other teammates.”
The Trojans’ 6 -6 center Robert McGivney controlled the paint and finished with 18 points.
Patrick Kelly is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press
