Lane Defeats Morgan Park 5-2 in CPL Playoffs

The Lane Tech Champions defeated the Morgan Park Mustangs 5-2 on Thursday afternoon at Kerry Wood Cubs Field. The Campions advance to face Whitney Young on Saturday at noon at UIC’s Les Miller Field at Curtis Granderson Stadium—isn’t that a mouthful.

Lane improved its record to 24-9, 14-0 in conference.

A spirited Morgan Park team made the trek north to face the Champions in the quarterfinal of the Chicago Public League baseball playoffs. The single elimination tournament will culminate in a championship game at Wrigley Field the coming Monday at 5:00 p.m. Admission is free. There is also free parking at the Cubs lot at Clark and Grace.

DePaul Prep Beats Marian Catholic 54-39 to Win Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic

[A preview of my next story in Inside Publications]

If there is one thing a DePaul Prep Rams basketball team knows how to do, it’s finish. The #7 ranked DePaul Prep Rams (15-0, 2-0) defeated the Marian Catholic Spartans (10-5, 3-1) 57-35 Saturday night to finish off its first Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic championship.

The Rams’ emotional victory over Oswego East in the semi-final game less than twenty-four hours before the championship game was the issue. The Oswego East game was certainly the Rams’ toughest game of the year. DePaul’s usual scoring formula—outside shooting and inside putbacks—was not working. They were 0-6 from three-point range. The big men inside, center senior Jaylan McElroy and sophomore Rashawn “Shawn” Porter, carried the load with some inside scoring but the Rams trailed at the half. They overcame their struggles in the second half and won going away, 54-39, but had it taken an emotional toll on the 14-0 Rams?

Having survived Oswego East, would the Rams suffer a letdown? Would the Rams’ struggles shooting the ball in the first half continue?

If there was going to be a letdown, it did now show as the championship game started. The Rams opened an early lead on the strength of two early three-pointers. One from senior guard PJ Chambers and the other from Shawn Porter. There was no letdown in the Rams. Chambers struggled against Oswego East but he was back to his reliable self against Marian. The Rams opened a ten-point lead by halftime.

Marian Catholic wasn’t going away. They are too well coached and too skilled for that. The Spartans cut the lead to seven at the start of the fourth.

Itt was time for the Rams to finish. 

“We just guarded. We try to start and finish quarters. The kids are buying into that. They did a nice job of finishing the quarter. We practice [finishing games]. We have some calls we make. The kids are aware of it. They are very attuned to it. We have been doing it for a while. We used to do it because we had to do it to win. We shorten possessions. Now we feel if we get a lead, we can make teams foul us and we make some free throws. If we get the lead, we can spread them and make the lead bigger,” said DePaul Prep head coach Tom Kleinschmidt.

That’s what happened. The Rams shortened their passes, drew out the defense and the minutes ticked off. They either got some layups or drew fouls. But it was the other end of the court that made the difference. The Rams held Marian to three points in the fourth quarter. They did not give up a single field goal in the fourth quarter.  The man-to-man defense forced bad outside shots. The Spartans had just three points all on the foul shots.

PJ Chambers lead all scorers with 22 points. McElroy had 14. Junior guard Makai Kvamme had 12. Porter had 14. Sophomore AJ Chambers (PJ’s brother) had 2. Junior forward George Richardson also had 2.

This is the Rams’ first Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic championship in seven tries. They have been in a final four four times, including a second-place finish in 2019.

The Rams take their #7 ranking and their 15-0 record into January but those might not be around long. In the first three weeks of January, the Rams host #2 ranked Homewood-Flossmoor in the annual Steve Pappas Shootout at DePaul’s Tom Winiecki Gym. And then it will be #3 ranked Mount Carmel at home. And then 15 win, and conference rival, Brother Rice. Oh, and then powerhouse Normal Community High School after that. 

The Lane Tech Champions (10-7, 3-1) also competed in the Hinsdale Classic. The Champions lost a close opener to Maine South 65-52, then wins over Morgan Park 71-37 and Morton 63-30 but fell to Lincoln-Way Central 51-47 in the final game.

The #15 ranked Lincoln Park Lions (12-4, 3-0) have made a splash this year. They advanced to the championship game in the Proviso West Holiday Tournament losing to #4 ranked Warren Township High School, 78-52.

The Walter Payton College Prep Grizzlies travelled to Centralia for its holiday tournament. Despite picking up an early season upset victory at home against Lane Tech, the Grizzlies dropped all three games in Centralia to Mt. Vernon 56-34, Belleville West 63-48 and Cahokia 63-57.

DePaul Prep Handles Vocational 62-46 and Look Ahead

The DePaul Prep Rams defeated the Chicago Vocational Career Academy 64-46 in the Battle of the Bridge Thanksgiving Tournament.

The Rams jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. The Rams defense simply stifled the CVS’s scoring attempts and and turned around and scored layups in transition. It was 20 to 6 and at the end of the first quarter and 43 to 18 at the half.  Rams’ Jr. guard Tyler Johnson finished with eighteen points. Center Brian Matthews had 13. Brian is playing with confidence and he is scoring. Lance Mosley had seven points.

Last year I wrote a season preview so I thought I should again. I am a little late with the Rams having already played two games but I thought I might offer some thoughts anyway.

Last year I wrote, “The Rams are also seen by many observers as among the top teams in 3A with Morgan Park, Bogan, St. Viator and St. Rita. So the expectations are high for a deep run into the IHSA 3A playoffs.” The Rams did not disappoint. They won the Grayslake Sectional over a very good St. Viator team. The Super-sectional game never happened because of a fight in the sectional championship between Farragut and North Lawndale. After falling to Bogan in the 3A semi-final, the Rams won the 3A Third Place last March over Peoria Manual.

In the words of Joe Henricksen, “Under Tom Kleinschmidt, DePaul Prep has arrived as a full-fledged, legitimate basketball program in Illinois.” Last year’s success made believers of Joe Henricksen and the Sun-Times reporter Michael O’Brien. The Rams look to take the next step from upstart to perennial powerhouse.

A look ahead at this year’s schedule has some opportunities for the Rams to pile up wins. The Chicago Catholic League poses its usual problems, Fenwick, Loyola, St. Joseph. I don’t know what to expect out of Br. Rice and St. Laurence with their two stars graduated or transferred. I would say the Catholic League Blue is wide open and the Rams have as good a chance as anybody.

The second major tournament is the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic. This will be the Rams third year in Hinsdale for Christmas week. Hinsdale has a number of ranked teams including Marian Catholic, Stevenson, Homewood-Flossmoor, Westinghouse and CCL rival St. Rita. The Rams could make a run at this title. It would be difficult and would require some good fortune but they could win.

The Second Annual Steve Pappas Shootout brings Deerfield to the Tom Winicki Gym. Deerfield is good but they are not Morgan Park. Personally, I think it was genius to bring in Morgan Park last year. It got last year’s team into a big game against a potential state tournament favorite. The narrow defeat gave the 2018/2019 Rams the confidence they needed for their deep playoff run.

This year’s St. Patrick Shootout will bring St. Viator. Even without St. Viator’s graduated stars, Hernandez and Calvin, my beloved Lions are more than just dangerous. Lions forward Connor Kochera is drawing rave reviews for his performances over the summer.

Non-conference games include Ridgewood, Peoria Manual, Benet and Mather (for senior night).

The 3A landscape is a little different this year. This is not your father’s 3A. Changing  enrollment classifications have dropped some traditional 4A schools into 3A. Among those schools moving from 4A to 3A are Notre Dame, Deerfield, Benet, Fenwick, Kenwood and Riverside-Brookfield. All these 4A playoff teams in 2018/2019 are in 3A this year. Throw in powerhouse teams like Morgan Park and Bogan and 3A is a whole new world.

So here we go:

1.         Battle of the Bridge

2.         CCL Part 1

3.         Hinsdale Christmas Tournament

4.         CCL Championship

5.         3A Playoffs

How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Half Over and Plenty Left to Do for DePaul Prep Rams

The season is half over. 29 regular season games with 14 in books. The DePaul Prep Rams record stands at 11 wins, 3 losses and 5-0 in the Chicago Catholic League. The Rams are ranked #12 in the Sun-Times Super 25 and #15 in the Chicago Tribune top 20.

The Rams have wins over #23 Providence St. Mel and #13 Leo. The three loses have been to Benet Academy, (12-3, 4A, currently ranked #16), Marian Catholic (14-1, 4A, #4) and Oswego East, (11-2, 4A, #17) by a total of nine points. So basically, the Rams have a couple good wins and three “good” losses.

It has been a long time since a DePaul Prep or Gordon Tech team has been this good. The Rams last won the Catholic League in 2000. The 11-3 mark is the best in the tenure of Coach Tom Kleinschmidt.

The first part of the year made believers out of those that thought the Rams might not be very good given the loss to North Chicago in last year’s sectional final. The Rams made a believer out of me early when the just appeared to play angry. Serious as a heart attack. Ask Notre Dame and Lane Tech. Those games impressed me. The Rams put those good teams away. Providence St. Mel came into the Tom Winiecki Gym hot and with a lot of hype. The Knights left soundly defeated.

The Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic, while disappointing for the Rams, was not a failure. They lost a close game to a very, very good Marian Catholic team. I have seen a lot of good teams this year: Evanston, St. Viator, Bloomington, Morgan Park, Curie, Uplift and Bloom. Marian Catholic looked just as good as any of those teams. As for losing to Oswego East in a double overtime 3rd place game, that means nothing. Who cares about a third-place game? Not me.

Still, the season is half over. It’s too early to be a good season. There is a great deal of work left to do and many very good teams to overcome.

The best teams left on the regular season schedule are #5 Morgan Park, #21 St. Laurence, #22 New Trier, and then CCL rivals Brother Rice, Fenwick, Loyola and St. Rita. The best is yet to come, a preview game against Morgan Park, a trip to Quincy, a fun one in a big shootout against New Trier and then the Catholic League games. Win the Catholic League. That’s what I want to see. Win the Catholic League.

After that, we’ll just have to see what happens.