Boys basketball: Streator clamps down on Marmion, takes third at Plano Christmas Classic

PLANO – Playing for the fourth time in as many days just 24 hours after losing in the semifinals, Streator was tested physically and mentally in Saturday’s third-place game against Marmion in the 60th annual Plano Christmas Classic.

Turning to the defense that has keyed its strong start this season, the Bulldogs limited the Cadets to just 12 points in the second half in a 52-37 victory.

“We just really challenged our guys at halftime,” Bulldogs coach Beau Doty said. “Our hallmark has been our defense really during this whole run since the third game of the season. We really didn’t think we were doing a great job in the half court. Where we’ve been beat at times has been in transition, but when we’ve been set we’ve been tough to beat.”

Marmion (7-9) only trailed 27-25 at halftime.

“We just had trouble scoring, putting the ball in the basket, but we gave everything we had,” Cadets coach Joe Piekarz said. “When you play in a third-place game those are sometimes the toughest ones to play in because you’re that close to a championship, especially with how narrow our game was last night.”

Streator (12-4) led 39-31 after three quarters. Christian Benning (22 points, 11 rebounds) had a layup, a putback and a great pass to Matt Williamson for an easy basket to open the fourth quarter and extend its lead to 45-31.

“When you’ve got (Benning), you’ve got a chance every single night,” Doty said. “And one of the things we talked about is our defense travels and it needs to travel every single time, wherever we go. If we have an off-shooting night we’re still able to have a chance. We shot 17 of 69 against Kaneland (on Friday) but we were still there. We had the same thing with East Peoria where we shot horrifically, but we kept them around 40 so our defense kept us in it.”

The Bulldogs have bought in to the defensive mindset.

“I think the kids are buying into that identity, which is nice to see,” Doty said. “When you see those things happen then when we do shoot well we’re going to win and when we don’t we still are going to have a chance.”

Cade Peterson and Quinn Baker each had seven points and Logan Auckland knocked down a pair of 3-pointers for the Bulldogs.

“Day four of tournaments is about toughness,” Doty said. “It’s about doing the little things and digging deep and getting in a stance and boxing out and doing all the little things you try to rep on a daily basis. Those things become magnified on days like this.”

Evan Stumm led the Cadets with 10 points and Matthew Stewart added eight points.

“This team continues to grow and get better,” Piekarz said. “We had so many new faces to start this season so for them to get able to play in a third place game says a lot about where we started.”

As productive as the new faces have been, no one was able to stop Benning. Simply trying to may have even hurt the Cadets.

“He’s tough; they’ve all tough,” Piekarz said,. “They wore us down and when you have to expend so much energy on defense that’s where sometimes it can be a struggle to score. I thought our kids battled and they battled and they’re tough and even though we didn’t win this game it wasn’t because they weren’t battling.”

It was that the battling from the Bulldogs produced more baskets.

“Streator is not the type of team you want to play on your fourth day because they’re physical and strong and you saw they wore us down,” Piekarz said. “They did a nice job of really establishing that physical part.”