Two down, one city championship game to go.
Between Friday night’s Public League semifinal against its archrival and Sunday’s title game, No. 3 Simeon gave itself an opportunity for a rare 3-0 weekend by beating No. 6 Evanston 55-43 in the City-Suburban Showdown on Saturday night at Lyons.
Zack Norvell scored 16 points, Josh Thomas had an efficient 15 and sophomore Talen Horton-Tucker added eight points, eight rebounds and five blocked shots as Simeon led comfortably throughout 24 hours after its dramatic 74-72 victory over No. 1 Morgan Park.
The Wolverines will play No. 5 Kenwood for the city championship at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at Chicago State, and they’re underplaying the challenge of beating three top-six teams back-to-back-to-back.
“We’re not going to make any excuses,” said Simeon coach Robert Smith, whose team lost to Bogan in the city final last year after beating No. 1 Stevenson at the City-Suburban the previous night.
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“(Bogan) just beat us. That didn’t have anything to do with it. I told them last week we’re not going to make any excuses. It’s not going to be, ‘If you hadn’t played three games in a row you would have won. They have to play nine AAU games in one day. They can handle it.”
Smith said the Wolverines didn’t do anything special to limit Evanston star Nojel Eastern to nine points on 3-for-19 shooting. The Wildkits shot 22.4 percent (13-for-58) overall.
“We played zone,” Smith said. “We watched film and saw they couldn’t shoot that well from the perimeter. That helped with our legs, we didn’t have to chase guys around. We didn’t do anything special for (Eastern). We only did something special for one player this year, (Morgan Park’s) Charlie Moore.”
Mike Helfgot is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.
Player of the game: Zack Norvell, Simeon, 16 points, 6 rebounds.
Key performers: Simeon — Josh Thomas, 15 points, 5-6 FGs; Talen Horton-Tucker, 8 points, 8 rebounds, 5 blocks. Evanston — Nojel Eastern, 9 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists; Dylan Mulvihill, 8 points, 11 rebounds.