DePaul Prep Defeats Oswego East 56-48

The DePaul Prep Rams (10-1, 1-0) played the Oswego East Wolves (6-4, 4-1) in the Coaches United Invitational at Whitney Young last evening. The game started about forty-five minutes late because the Curie v. Waukegan game before went into overtime.

These shootout games make me nervous because they are at such random times on random days. I fear they will catch the Rams distracted or tired or hurt or just not focused. I tell myself, “don’t worry about the win/loss record.” What does it really matter if one drops a game to some south suburban school? This is about winning the Chicago Catholic League and the 3A state championship.

The Rams were waiting.

So was I. The white balance on my R-3 had been off in recent days. So, since I had some time. I had my headphones with me so I fired up You Tube for a quick tutorial on doing a manual white balance on the R-3. I did the white balance and it worked nicely.

Then I waited some more.

I sat in my usual spot at Whitney Young. Except this was not a Whitney Young game. I was at the wrong end of the gym to catch the Rams on offense. Not a big deal; it just felt a little off.

At the start of the game, the Rams were a little off. Not so bad, just committing more turnovers than usual. They lead 13-7 at the end of the first quarter.

The second quarter wasn’t better. There was still a lot of turnover and the refs were not helping. Tied at 25 at the half. Nothing that was so bad. Just off.

I thought, Tom Kleinschmidt will work it out.

The Rams were better in the third. Rashaun Porter and Rykan Woo were scoring. The Rams’ defense kicked in at the start of the fourth quarter. Plus, Oswego East just lost some steam. They weren’t finding the good shots in the paint that they had been. An 11-2 run to open the 4th quarter (I wrote 9-2 in a tweet I posted but it was 11-2) gave the Rams the edge they usually put on teams at the start of the third quarter. The Rams kind of coasted to victory after that.

So the start of the season is in the books. Ten wins against one loss, and that to the No. 1 ranked team, and then by only two points. Wins against a couple ranked opponents and an out-of-state powerhouse.

But here is the really fun part—Pontiac. If you have gone, you should go. I love the Pontiac Holiday Tournament. My experience is a little different than that of the average fan. I sit courtside and get to go in the press room and relax in private while working on photos and stories. The fun part are the games. Always good teams and good games. The people in Pontiac are so nice and friendly, even talkative. It’s fun. I love it.

Now I get to see our DePaul Prep Rams in the granddaddy of the holiday tournaments. It’s an honor and a pleasure. But, they will face some serious competition. A win over host Pontiac would likely bring Joliet West, Curie, Simeon or Benet. Fine with me. The Rams will be ready. Let’s go.

DePaul Prep Throttles Marian Catholic 20-7; Improves to 3-0

Preview of this week’s article in the Booster.

DePaul Prep defeated Marian Catholic 20-7 Friday in Chicago Heights. The Rams improved to 3-0 for the first time in the DePaul Prep era.

DePaul Prep had Marian playing their game. The Rams knew Marian Catholic could run the football. Spartan six foot, 173 lbs, junior tailback Kyle Scott was a load, and fast. Early in the game, the Spartans strung together a couple first downs in each of their first quarter possessions. The Rams stiffened, forcing the Spartans to throw the ball.

An ebullient head coach Mike Passarella gushed about his squad. “Stop the run. That was the game plan,” Passarella said. “They moved the ball on us. I said, ‘let’s just play base football . . . Let’s get after them.’ We are confident in what our guys can do. They know their business,” Passarella said after the game.

“We wanted to force them to throw.”

And they did. Except the Spartans throw the ball to the Rams. Two early interceptions thrown by Marian quarterback senior Joey Baranski killed the Spartans drives without ever moving deep into DePaul Prep territory. Multiple illegal formation penalties contributed to the Spartans troubles. The Rams committed penalties of their own contributing a slow, mistake plagued half for both teams.

It wasn’t until the end of the first half before either team put together a scoring drive. With 3:27 left in the half, having moved the ball down to the Marian Catholic eleven-yard line, Rams’ senior quarterback Fernando “Juju” Rodriguez, a three-year starter, rifled a pass to junior wideout Matthew Osterman at the goal line in the middle of the field. Osterman caught the pass in a crowd for the first score of the game. The PAT gave the Rams a seven- point lead.   

 The Spartans took the subsequent kick but again throw an interception. The Spartans through a total of four interceptions in the game. The Rams took their 7-0 lead into the half.

 The second half was a different story. The Rams took the kickoff and moved right down the field. Halftime adjustments on the offensive line led to Rodriguez being able to connect with Osterman and Rams’ senior running back Nick Martinez for big gains. The drive culminated with a 25-yard strike to senior wide receiver Justin Sterner early in the third quarter.

Rodriguez added a touchdown late in the third quarter on a two-yard quarterback sneak up the middle. Marian blocked the extra point attempt making the score 20-0 at the end of the third.

The Spartans scored on a 73-yard pass reception touchdown that was mostly run-after-the-catch with 1:18 left in the game against the Rams’ second team defense but the game was decided at that point.

This was a huge game for the Rams. They haven’t started a season with three wins since the Gordon Tech days. The Rams move closer to making the IHSA playoffs which takes six wins to be assured a playoff berth. The Rams finished last year’s the regular season 4-5 and missed the playoffs

DePaul Prep started this season with two convincing wins over Deerfield and Marian Central Catholic, 35-28 and 35-7 respectively. The Rams moved up a division in the combined Chicago Catholic League and East Suburban Catholic League. Moving from the lowest “Red” division into the Purple. The CCL/ESCC Purple includes Benet Academy, St. Viator and Northside rival St. Patrick.

The Rams will face St. Patrick next Friday at home. After that will be Loyola at home. The Ramblers lost a shocker at St. Francis 35-21 on Friday. A playoff berth is by no means assured for the Rams. Only tough games remain on the schedule. After Loyola is St. Viator, Carmel, St. Francis and Benet.

Sparked by last year’s huge upset win over Fenwick at home and squad loaded with experience and talented seniors, including expected Division One talent of senior wide receiver Braden Peevy and sophomore offensive tackle Carlos Rios, the Rams football program is on the rise.

“I am excited for [the rest of reason]. This is kind of what we wanted. The goal is to continue to build up the program. We talked about it a few years ago. Where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do. We never wanted to stay down in the Red. We wanted to move up. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. I am excited for it. This is what it is all about,” Passarella said.

Riverside-Brookfield Summer Shootout 2024

The Riverside-Brookfield Summer Shootout this past weekend was a good look at teams in advance this year’s upcoming tournament. I mostly cover the Chicago Catholic League and the Chicago Public League so I wanted to get a look at as many of those teams as I could. But I could only be there on Friday.

I got a look at DePaul Prep in games against Lake Zurich and DeLaSalle. The Rams have plugged in junior guard/wing Rykan Woo, a transfer from Whitney Young. The Rams return Makai Kvamme, AJ Chambers, Rob Walls and Rashawn Porter. They should pick up where they left off.

The Lane Tech Champions also looked like they picked up where they left off. Despite losing Shaheed Solebo to graduation, the Champions return Dalton Scantlebury, a top player in the 2025 class. The returning group of seniors, Braydon Rosenkrantz, Drew Bartoli, Mike Remotigue and Zach Mazanowski. Despite a close lose to Simeon in their first game, the Champions looked good.

The St. Ignatius Wolfpack looked very good against East St. Louis. Returning top player Phoenix Gill looked bigger, stronger and faster. A new group of starters, make this pack of wolves appear especially dangerous in the coming season.

I saw DeLaSalle against DePaul Prep. Meteors coach Gary DeCesare will have this talent group ready. They looked good but not good enough against the Rams.

I saw the first half of St. Laurence against Glenbard West. Jason Opeka had his Hilltoppers playing their 1-3-1 defense that was giving the talented group of Vikings, lead be returning EJ Mosley, some trouble. I didn’t get a good chance to see much of what Roshawn Russell and this Vikings will have in store for the league this winter. I asked one observer about St. Laurence. He said, “We’ll see.”

I also got a look at El Paso-Gridley. A newcomer to the R-B, the Comets look to show off their top performer Jonah Funk. The 6-9 forward didn’t dominate and played on the perimeter more that I expected. The 2-A Comets were overmatched in the game I some them play against DeKalb. It’s difficult to say how well the Comets will fair this season even with Funk. But I got a look at Funk, he will dominate the Comets conference opponents. I intend to get down to El Paso at least once this year to see Funk play, if he stays in El Paso.

I also got a look at Lou Adams’ Rich Township squad. I figured it was only a matter of time before Adams working Rich into a top team. That time appears to have arrived. Look for Rich to make a splash.

I got a look at Benet. The Redwings look special even without one of last year’s top contributor, Gabe Sularski. Sularski a couple court’s over after returning to his home town Lemont team. Sularski had a couple chippy exchanges with Whitney Young’s Antonio Munoz in their matchup.

Whitney Young is, well, Whitney Young. They will be very good as usual—maybe special. Antonio Munoz looks itching to get after a state title.

So those are my impressions of Friday. Here are a few photos from the day.

Waubonsie Valley Handles Plainfield East 65-35

I went out to Waubonsie Valley high school in Aurora to see the fourth ranked and undefeated Warriors take on conference opponent Plainfield East. I was taking pictures so I couldn’t do much more than keep track of the score but I am quite sure that Plainfield East had more turnovers in the first half than they had shots. Plainfield East did not play well.

Waubonsie Valley made them pay. The Warriors finished on layups and a couple dunks, hit some threes and showed some impressive ball movement.

I can’t say I was particularly impressed with Waubonsie’s defense. They opposed shots but they did regularly give up penetration in the paint. East’s shots mostly missed.

The Warriors handled East 65-35 in a game that lasted little more than an hour.

I wanted to see if Waubonsie Valley is really good given its gaudy win-loss record or if they just haven’t played anybody. I looked through the Warrior’s schedule. They haven’t played a ranked team but they have beaten a very good Normal Community team that is not part of Michael O’Brien’s Chicago area rankings. I saw Normal Community just edge DePaul Prep at the When Sides Collide shootout last weekend. They are big and quite good. Even so our plucky DePaul Prep Rams teams very nearly defeated Normal so I would not say Normal is a great team.

I have seen Curie, Homewood-Flossmoor and Thornton, the teams that rank ahead of Waubonsie Valley. Waubonsie is not as good as any of those teams.

As for the teams behind Waubonsie, Mount Carmel, Benet, Bloom, Downers Grove North, Warren, DePaul Prep and Brother Rice. I would have to say that most of these teams are as good or better than Waubonsie.

In a week, we will get a chance to see how good Waubonsie is when they take on #12 Bollingbrook. Mark your calendars.

That being written, 22-0 is impressive. They deserve the high rank. Going undefeated in any league, in any sport, in any conference is hard, hard, hard to do. So #4 they are and so they should stay. At least until we see how they do against Bolingbrook.

DePaul Prep Defeats Leo 62-23 on Senior Night

The DePaul Prep Rams defeated Leo Friday night 62-23 at home. It was senior night. The school also honored academic standouts and hosted a faculty appreciation night. The full house saw the Rams hitting on all cylinders with significant contributions from deep into the bench.

The Rams improve their record to a previously unattained 21-2 overall and 4-0 in the Chicago Catholic League. Certainly the best record that I have seen more than two-thirds of the way through a DePaul Prep/Gordon Tech season. Maybe not the toughest but the most important part of the season lies ahead—key Chicago Catholic League matchups.

The Rams have IC Catholic Providence, St. Ignatius, DeLaSalle, Mount Carmel and Fenwick left to play. Plus today’s game against Wisconsin powerhouse Peewaukee and the regular season finale against Benet.

One game at a time.

DePaul Prepare Beats Brother Rice 55-46 in CCL Showdown

A preview of my Inside—Booster article for this week:

The #11 DePaul Prep Rams (18-1, 3-0) defeated the #9 Brother Rice Crusaders (19-3, 3-1) at Brother Rice Friday evening taking a big step toward to winning the Chicago Catholic League championship.

The Rams and the Crusaders are two of the top three teams in the Chicago Catholic League Blue division. The other being fourth ranked Mount Carmel. There are, of course, quite a few League games left for the Rams to play, including Mount Carmel, St. Ignatius, Montini, Leo, IC Catholic, Providence, DeLaSalle and Fenwick but the winner of this game is set up for a showdown with Mount Carmel, the only other undefeated team in League play, to decide the eventual winner of the Chicago Catholic League. DePaul Prep will face Mount Carmel at home on February 12th.

The Rams opened the game taking their time to shoot the ball. The signature quick ball movement by the Rams seemed even more exaggerated then DePaul head coach Tom Kleinschmidt’s usual game plan.

“We wanted to them play at our pace with our short bench,” Kleinschmit said. Junior guard and defensive specialist Rob Walls and junior forward Jonas Johnson were out with injuries for this key League game.

“We wanted to make them go side-to-side defensively. If we would have gone up and done and gotten into a running game with them, we would have gotten beat,” Kleinschmidt added.

“We were ready and executed the game plan perfectly. We wanted to take good open shots.”

The plan worked. The Rams grabbed an early lead on the strength of two three-points early in the first quarter by senior guard and offensive sparkplug PJ Chambers. PJ added two free-throws at the end of the first quarter lifting the Rams to a 14-6 lead.

Rams’ center Jaylan McElroy picked up his third foul with 3:30 left in the half which forced Kleinschmidt to go to the bench earlier than me might have liked. But the Rams hung on taking an eleven point lead into halftime.

Brother Rice was simply too good to just go away. The Crusaders worked their way back from seven down at the end of the third to force overtime holding the Rams to five points in the fourth. Holding the ball has a way of limiting a teams’ scoring.

Overtime was a whole different thing. Once again PJ Chambers made an early statement by draining a deep three-pointer that felt like it came from the Rams’ bench. The Rams defense held the Crusaders to just two points in the extra frame and the Rams won going away 55-46. After Chamber early three, the Rams added six free-throws.

 “[Sophomore guard and PJ’s younger brother] AJ [Chambers] really grew up tonight. Shawn [Rashawn Porter] grew up about five or six games ago, probably the Christmas tournament [referring to Porter’s standout performance in the comeback victory in the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic semifinal against Oswego East]. AJ Chambers was able to give Makai [Kvamme] a break. He has been handling the ball for us for 32 minutes,” Kleinschmidt said praising his young player’s effort.

As for the Rams’ signature defense, Kleinschmidt said, “the switching really bothers guys if you don’t see it coming. And then, we do ‘front the post’ (meaning playing in from of the big man underneath the basket) with backside help. It’s part of our system. It’s hard [for other teams to] duplicate in practice. We are just used to doing it. It’s hard to prepare for.”

The Rams defense came through mightily in limiting Brother Rice’s stand out senior guard Cale Cosme to ten points. Cosme is the engine that drives the Crusaders.

“I just love to watch [Cosme] play. He is tough. He is a hard-nosed. He’s a good player. We wanted to tag him a little bit. We wanted to keep him out of the paint because he is such a great penetrator. He snuck around on us a little bit. But I think we did a nice job on him.”

Rams senior guard PJ Chambers came through for the Rams early in the first quarter. Two consecutive three-pointers lifted the Rams to an 8-2 lead. That set the tone for the Rams to make Brother Rice play their game.

Chamber could hardly contain himself after the game. “I was excited. I was happy. I was ready to play. I’m too excited, I can hardly speak right now,” Chambers said.

Chambers lead all scorers with 24 points; his highest scoring game of the season. Twenty-two points was Chambers previous top scoring game this season.

“When I got the free throw line [with 57.7 left in the fourth quarter], I said to myself, ‘please let me get past 22.’ When I hit them I was like, ‘yes!’” said Chambers.

The Rams move onto play Normal Community High School on Saturday at the When Side Collide Shootout at Benet Academy. Then it’s back into the Catholic League schedule with Montini and Leo next week.

Simeon Survives Benet to Win Pontiac Championship 52-49

I just love the Pontiac Holiday Tournament. It is so well done. And this year it did not disappoint. Simeon took a sixteen-point lead at the half. I knew it wasn’t over.

Benet Academy (15-1, 5-0) came all the way back, well—not all the way. Simeon (12-0, 3-0), lead by Jalen Griffith, 17 points, survived a furious comeback by the Redwings, 52-49, to win Robert Smith’s 11th championship at Pontiac and Simeon’s 15th.

So more about Pontiac. It’s totally about basketball. People are there to see good basketball. The crowd is large but not too large. The gym is big but not too big. The light is, well, good enough. The food is good and not expensive.

And the people there are so nice. They treat the patrons and the media so well. I cannot overstate how great of an experience it is. It’s so comfortable to work there. They have a wonderful media room. They provide food and drinks.

Except for a break for World War II and the COVID Pandemic, the tournament has been going since 1926. The program contains a ton of facts to know and tell. How many times has Mike Oliver and his Curie Condors won the tournament you ask? On page thirty of the program, one will learn Coach Oliver have won the tournament four times. How many Mr. Basketballs have played in the Pontiac Holiday Tournament you ask? Nine, of course. (Page 80.) How many NBA players have played in the Tournament? 25. See page 78.

Oh, and did I say the tournament used my photo of Miles Rubin on the cover of this year’s program? It did. It’s a great honor for me, even if my loving wife is not impressed.

Only 362 days until on the 2023 Pontiac Holiday Tournament!

2018-2019 IHSA 3A & 4A Girls Championship

Went to Bloomington for the 2018-2019 IHSA 3A and 4A girls championships. The IHSA and Rebird Arena run a nice event. They made it easy to go some good work. The light in that room is as good as I have seen. No issues at all.

I took a lot of pictures and I decided to put them all together. They were originally published in the IL Preps Insider. I hope you like them.

Benet Defeats St. Viator 62-57

The St. Viator Lions traveled to Benet Academy Wednesday evening (Feb. 20, 2019) for an East Suburban Catholic Conference game with the conference title on the line. If the Lions won, they would be conference champs.

The game started slow with a lot of missed shots. But late first quarter threes from St. Viator’s Trey Calvin gave the Lions a 12-11 lead at the end of the first quarter.

However, despite Benet’s senior forward Kendrick Tchoua sitting out most of the second quarter with two fouls, the Lions had no answer for Benet’s junior center Colin Crothers. Crothers got the ball in the paint and scored to give Benet a 27-21 half time lead.

Benet held its lead throughout the second half increasing it to as much as 12 late in the fourth quarter. With several minutes left, St. Viator starting sending the Redwings to the line. Surprisingly, Benet kept missing free through and the Lions cut the deficit to five inside a minute. Two free throws by Tchoua extended the lead to seven with several seconds to go and Benet held on to the victory.

The Benet victory means that despite losing to St. Viator last Friday night, Marian Catholic is the East Suburban Catholic Conference champions.

The St. Viator Lions finished the season at 23-6 overall and 7-2 in the ESCC. The Lions host a 3A Regional starting Monday, with their first game Tuesday evening against the winner of Noble/ITW Speer and Marine Leadership Academy. The Lions come in as the #1 seed in the Grayslake Central Sectional.

Benet Academy finished the season at 22-7 over all and 7-2 in the ESCC. The Redwings enter the Bartlett 4A Sectional as the #2 seed behind #1 seed Geneva and play the winner of Addison Trail and Glenbard East on Tuesday.

Welcome to playoff time and the beginning of the end of another high school basketball season.

Benet Comes Back to Simeon 77-66 and Win 4A Regional

In very well played and high scoring game, the Benet Redwings came back from a late deficit against to the Simeon Wolverines and captured the 4A Benet Regional title, 71-66, on Thursday, (February 14, 2019).

DePaul Prep Handles Providence, Improves to 8-0

The last time I was at Providence Catholic in Lemont was five years ago when Gordon Tech faced Providence and Miles Boykin in a football game. The Rams played hard but lost 42-0. This evening there was a measure of payback.

The DePaul Prep Rams took apart the Providence Celtics at Providence like I haven’t seen in a Catholic League game in as long as I can remember. The first half ended 31-8. The Rams continued their intense play. They continue to play angry. There was no let down. I over heard some Providence parents talking after the game. They kept saying, “our boys played hard but that’s a good team.” “That’s a good team.”

Rams 56, Celtics 25. DePaul Prep improves to 4-0 in the CCL and 8-0 overall. ESCC crossover game tomorrow (Sat., Dec. 14, 2008) versus Benet Academy in the Tom Winiecki Gym. The Rams look to repeat last year’s victory over Benet when the Rams won 35-34 at Benet on Lance Mosley’s last second jumper.

As for the photos, Providence has the nicest light of any gym I can remember. Very clean white light and plenty of it. The photos turned pretty good. I got a couple nice one of Perry Cowen’s dunk.

Hope you like the photos.