SIU recruit Daniel Pauliukonis, hot-shooting Benet take care of Waubonsie Valley in front of sellout crowd

LISLE – Daniel Pauliukonis is, in basketball parlance, a “unicorn.”

Benet’s lanky 6-foot-9 senior, a Southern Illinois recruit, can shoot it like guards much smaller than him. Pauliukonis has come into his own his senior year for a Redwings' lineup that when connected and shooting well can be tough to stop.

And he was at his best Wednesday.

Pauliukonis scored a season-high 23 points and hit five of Benet’s eight 3-pointers. The Redwings shot a sizzling 69% for the game in beating Waubonsie Valley 63-45 in front of a sellout crowd at the Class 4A Benet Sectional semifinal.

“That’s my season high but I don’t care about that – I care about winning," Pauliukonis said. “I just did my pregame routine. We were were well prepared as a team. Proud of my guys. Coached prepared us really well as well.”

Colin Stack and Jayden Wright each added 16 points and Truman State commit Blake Fagbemi nine assists for third-seeded Benet (29-5), which advanced to play fourth-seeded Downers Grove North in Friday’s sectional final.

Joshua Tinney scored 14 points and Illinois State recruit Tyreek Coleman 11 for Waubonsie (31-3).

Fagbemi, the maestro to Benet’s attack, said he encouraged Pauliukonis before the game to get it going early.

He clearly took it to heart.

Pauliukonis' second 3-pointer helped Benet jump out to a 12-2 lead less than five minutes in. That quickly got a huge home crowd going that had every seat full and two rows deep standing on the baseline.

“It was electric. It was really fun,” Pauliukonis said. “I want to thank the Benet community for coming out.”

Pauliukonis, who shot 9 of 12 and also grabbed seven rebounds, had 13 points by halftime, a half in which Benet shot 70% as a team and led 34-24.

“Daniel is playing like a senior right now, at a high level. He’s really come into his own,” Benet coach Gene Heidkamp said. “His confidence level is very high. He’s trying to get as much out of his senior year as possible.”

Fagbemi was frequently at the giving end of Pauliukonis' deep shots.

“He makes my job a lot easier,” Fagbemi said. “He was hitting shots in warmups. He’s one of a kind.”

Waubonsie came out of halftime well, Tinney scoring the first five points to get the margin to five.

But Benet hit the Warriors with a 14-2 run from there. Pauliukonis had seven points during that run. Wright started it by rolling in a jumper, and also hit a step-back 3-pointer.

“We stayed poised as a team, moved the ball well – all of us played well together," Pauliukonis said.

Indeed, Pauliukonis and Wright hit shots from deep, Stack was a force at the basket and Waubonsie couldn’t keep Fagbemi out of the lane on drives.

“That was if not our best game, one of our best games,” Heidkamp said. “I think all of our kids played well. I thought we played really well together offensively and competed defensively.”

Benet shot 8 of 11 from the 3-point line, a telling stat to Waubonsie coach Andrew Schweitzer.

“We did a deep dive, and looking at their five losses they had the commonality is they didn’t shoot the 3 that well. We knew coming in that was one thing we had to take away,” Schweitzer said. “Most of the ones they made were pretty contested. Credit to them, they executed and shot the crap out of the ball.”

On the opposite end, Coleman scored just four points after the first quarter and shot 5 of 14 for the game. His sidekick, Moses Wilson, had just two points and one rebound before fouling out.

“Defensively, they made everything tough for us,” Schweitzer said. “It’s hard to simulate a 7-footer in practice, and 6-9. We didn’t shoot the ball well and that’s a credit to them. We had spurts. We just could not sustain.

“We couldn’t get downhill. There was a big body waiting for us.”

Schweitzer’s group lost a game shy of the sectional final for the second straight year, but he kept perspective.

“This senior class, holy cow,” he said. “Back-to-back regionals for the first time since 2007-2008, back-to-back conference champs never been done before. The last two years they put us on the map.”

Benet next turns its attention to a Downers Grove North team that stunned the sectional Tuesday, upsetting No. 1 Bolingbrook 29-26.

“It’s going to be a crazy environment, a heck of a game,” Heidkamp said. “They have a tremendous team and [Downers Grove North coach] Jim [Thomas] does an unbelievable job.”