PEORIA — The last time Belleville Althoff lost a basketball game to a team from Illinois, Jordan Goodwin and three other starters were busy playing football.
They were a big part of a football team that was good enough place second in the Class 4A.
As for basketball, nobody in the state is better.
Goodwin totaled 19 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three steals and held Lincoln-Way West leading scorer Marco Pettinato to 10 points as Belleville Althoff ended the Warriors’ Cinderella run with a 62-37 victory in the Class 3A state final at Carver Arena.
Belleville Althoff (32-2) won its first state championship after finishing second to St. Joseph last season. The Crusaders will be bumped up to 4A next year because of the IHSA’s “success factor” rule.
The Crusaders won their final 20 games after their only loss with Goodwin and Co. in the lineup — to St. Louis Chaminade and five-star Duke recruit Jayson Tatum.
“I think we could have won 4A this year, easily,” said Goodwin, a 6-foot-4 junior who will return next season along with starting guard C.J. Coldon and key reserve Marvin Bateman. “Next year I’m going to come back a better shooter, a better guard.”
“It’s definitely the best matchup I faced all year,” Pettinato said. “He’s pretty much me in a nutshell but two inches taller and more athletic. He did a good job, forced me into a couple mistakes. He is a great player.”
Lincoln-Way West (22-10) upset Hillcrest, Morgan Park and Peoria Manual to get within a victory of an improbable state championship. The Warriors led Althoff 14-10 early in the second quarter before the Crusaders separated themselves from the Warriors and the rest of Illinois.
Three-pointers by Goodwin and Tarkus Ferguson and two by Bateman fueled a 22-6 run that gave Althoff a 32-20 lead.
“We talked before the game about what way we could live with ourselves the best if they beat us,” West coach Brian Flaherty said. “To their credit, we were trying to guard the lane and help around the basket and they went out in the first half and got six 3s on us.
“So we had to extend on them and once we extended we couldn’t help the way we need to on a team like that.”
Mike Helfgot is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.
Player of the game: Jordan Goodwin, Belleville Althoff, 19 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals.
Key performers: Lincoln-Way West — Cameron Gavin, 10 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals; Marco Pettinato, 10 points, 5 rebounds. Althoff — Tarkus Ferguson, 11 points, 7 rebounds.
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