Inspired WWS Rolls Past Wheaton Academy

By David Oberhelman
Daily Herald Sports Writer
Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Wheaton Warrenville South a No. 16 seed? It doesn’t jibe.

The Tigers won their sixth straight boys basketball game, 61-42 over No. 17 seed Wheaton Academy on Monday in the play-in game at the Class AA Glenbard East regional in Lombard.

“There’s no pressure on us. Everyone’s talking about West Aurora and Glenbard East in the finals,” WW South coach Mike Healy said of the duo his Tigers beat to cap the regular season.

“We’ll just show up and play and see what happens, and our kids hopefully will leave everything out there and maybe some things break our way.”

Monday, WW South (12-15) made its own breaks.

Initially, Wheaton Academy (12-14) used early 3-pointers from Ben Euler and Joel Malmquist to post a 13-6 lead.

WW South answered with a 12-2 run that featured Joe Rook’s putback at the first-quarter horn and a Pat Rooney drive for an 18-15 Tigers lead at 5:16 of the second quarter.

Hurt by foul trouble to freshman center Tim Rusthoven on down, Wheaton Academy was on its fourth big man with 3:22 before halftime.

“I think definitely our big men did a good job,” Rooney said. “Derek Babb really stepped up. He kind of cleared out the lane. And we also did a good job of moving and setting hard screens so that we could get to the lane and drive.”

The combined 8 first-half offensive rebounds by Rook, Babb, Deon Thomas and Kendrick Perry were more than the Warriors’ 6 overall. And for the game, Wheaton Academy did not shoot one free throw.

“We didn’t do a good job of getting to the basket, necessarily,” said Wheaton Academy coach Paul Ferguson. “But part of that is their quickness. They had a lot more quickness than we did, almost every position.”

Wheaton Academy cut WW South’s 30-25 halftime lead to 32-31 on baskets by Euler, Rusthoven and Matt Jones.

Babb then converted a three-point play. A defensive stop and a Reggie Redmond 3 followed, and the Tigers were off to an 18-2 run for a 50-33 lead with 4:20 left to play.

Rooney led WW South with 14 points; Babb scored 10 with 7 rebounds. Euler led all scorers with 19 points.