Joliet Catholic starts fast and rolls to regional crown

JOLIET – On the first possession of the game, Joliet Catholic guard, Jayden Armstrong attacked the basket and scored rather easily.

Seeing that the rest of his Hilltopper teammates decided to follow Armstrong’s lead, voraciously attacking the basket and finding mostly the same result that Armstrong did.

As such Joliet Catholic was able to establish early control of its own Class 2A Regional title game breezing to a 81-61 victory over Chicago Christian.

Joliet Catholic (16-14) advances to the Peotone Sectional where it will play Bishop McNamara on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Bishop McNamara defeated Fieldcrest 61-45 at the Fieldcrest Regional.

“We wanted to get the ball and run on them,” Armstrong said. “We saw on film that they were pretty slow running up and down. We chose to run on them and we shot the ball great.”

The fervent approach allowed the Hilltoppers to jump out to a 12-0 lead, which was a large chunk of why Joliet Catholic held a 22-9 advantage after a quarter.

The lead grew as large as 19 in the second quarter, before Chicago Christian trimmed the halftime margin down to 12 by rattling off the last six points of the first half.

“That’s how we like to play, we like to get up and down,” Joliet Catholic coach Adam DeGroot said. “We knew it was going to be kind of an up-tempo game because that’s how they like to play too. But I couldn’t be happier with the start.”

The only time that Joliet Catholic was remotely threatened was early in the third quarter. Chicago Christian, who finished 14-13, inched within six points on an Eddie VanDellen basket that capped 8-2 Knight scoring run that started the second half.

And that was fostered largely because it was one of the few times where Joliet Catholic got away from what got them there as it slowed down the pace with its substantial lead.

“We took it off the gas a little bit,” DeGroot admitted.

But they didn’t take it off for long. Joliet Catholic closed the third quarter on an 18-6 scoring surge and rebuilt its advantage to 60-42 heading into the fourth quarter.

The scoring was coming from a litany of sources as well. Armstrong paced the effort with 21 points, but Jack Superits (15), Connor Louthan (13), Brady Tunkel (12) and Donavyn Simmons (11) all reached double-digits.

“That’s how our team has been, we do not have a predominant scorer. I think Jayden and Donavyn both are leading us at about 10 points per game, which isn’t flashy numbers,” DeGroot said. “We talk about this idea of mudita, the whole idea of vicarious joy for others, being happy for your teammates' success and stuff like that. I thought that was on full display tonight.”

Joliet Catholic’s rigorous schedule left them below the .500 mark for much of the season is now paying dividends in the postseason.

“I think people look at our record of 14-14 coming into the postseason and are not thrilled,” DeGroot said. “But when you look at the strength of schedule that we’ve played, we are seeing the benefits of doing that now.”