St. Joseph held Rockford Lutheran to three points in the first quarter and led by 22 points at the half, but Chargers coach Gene Pingatore wasn’t satisfied after his team’s 55-38 win Friday in the Class 3A boys basketball state semifinals.
“We’ve got to get smarter,” Pingatore said. “We did some good things, but we’ve got to get better. Tomorrow will be a different story. Althoff is really good.”
St. Joseph’s knows from experience. The Chargers beat Belleville Althoff, their opponent in Saturday’s state final, 97-95 in double overtime on Feb. 7 in O’Fallon. The rematch is scheduled for 2 p.m. at Carver Arena.
The first time the teams met, St. Joseph was playing its second road game in as many nights. The Chargers won at St. Ignatius 49-40 on Feb. 6 and then traveled about 280 miles south to O’Fallon the next day. St. Joseph senior guard Joffery Brown scored 14 points and made the game-winning basket on a 15-foot jumper with just seconds remaining.
“That [first game] was probably the most wild game we’ve every played at St. Joseph,” Northwestern-bound guard Jordan Ash said. “We were down 11.”
The real thrill was the showdown between Nebraska-bound guard Glynn Watson, who scored a career-high 38 points for the Chargers, and Crusaders sophomore forward Jordan Goodwin, who responded with 33 points for his second highest total of the season.
“We needed to score and make some shots,” Watson said. “My teammates were giving me the ball, which is why I kept on scoring.”
Goodwin, Belleville Althoff’s leading scorer, entered the state tournament averaging 19.7 points per game and had 18 points in Belleville Althoff’s 82-74 victory over Morgan Park in the other semifinal on Friday.
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Brendon Gooch, who grabbed 14 rebounds in the first meeting against St. Joseph, scored a team-high 20 points against Morgan Park.
Belleville Althoff hasn’t lost since playing St. Joseph while the Crusaders enter the state championship with a nine-game winning streak. St. Joseph and Morgan Park are the only Chicago area schools Althoff has played this season.
“[Althoff] showed us they don’t care about who you are or what your name is — they just play,” Ash said.
Twitter: @geomwilcox