DePaul Prep Defeat No. 5 Warren 58-54

[Preview of this week’s article in the Inside—Booster.]

By Jack Lydon

DePaul Prep went up to Gurnee to face fifth ranked Warren and took care of business defeating the Blue Devils 58-54. The Rams just keep winning improving their season record to 26-3 and maintaining their No. 2 ranking.

In the regular season penultimate contest, DePaul Prep has lost only one game to an in-state opponent. That was a 52-43 loss to the No. 1 ranked Benet Redwings on New Year’s Eve at the Pontiac Holiday Tournament.

Thursday’s matchup featured the best player in the state, Warren’s junior guard Jaxson Davis, on the fifth ranked team against the second ranked team with two All City players, DePaul Prep’s seniors Rykan Woo and Rashawn Porter on the second ranked team and three-time state champions.

A battle of titans? Well, let’s not lose our heads, but surely the final meeting between top ranked teams in the regular season.

The Rams struggled a little early missing shots on their first four possessions.

“I don't know it's they just weren't going in the basket,” said Rykan Woo, Rams senior guard who was named to the Sun-Times first team All City Team on Friday.

Down 6-0, Woo made a layup and on the Rams’ next possession, Rams senior Zion Lee, a transfer from Springfield’s Sacred Heart-Griffin high school, drained a long three pointer.

“I just knew I had to try, I had to do something,” Lee said. “I knew we were down, so I had to come up with energy. I had to come up with confidence.” The Rams were back in it with the score 6-5.

Lee and the Rams surged ahead in the second quarter outscoring the Blue Devils 21-10. Lee added a field goal and another three-pointer midway through the second.

“It was that energy that we picked up going into the second quarter,” Zion Lee said. “We talked, we huddled to make sure that we kept the same energy.”

With the floodgates opened by Lee, the flood of points followed, Woo with 8, senior forward and the Rams other first team All City player, Rashawn Porter with 4, AJ Chambers with 3 and Blake Choice with 2.

It wasn’t the just the scoring energy of the Rams; it couldn’t be against the top player in the state. Defense would win the day.

“We had to show him two early,” said Rams head coach Tom Kleinschmidt about double-teaming Warren’s star Jaxson Davis.

“And we try to stay home on the shooters, let the bigs beat us,” said Kleinschimdt in coach speak about double-teaming Davis to make him pass the ball out to shooters on the perimeter.

It worked for the most part. Davis also faced some triple teams on his attempts to drive the lane.

“We just gotta show help and leave rebound lanes open lanes. He’s a hell of a player. You got to show two or two and a half of them. He's a great player,” Kleinschmidt said of Davis. The Ram didn’t stop Davis. He had 15 points in the game. But they definitely slowed him down. He is a player capable of scoring 40 or 50 in a game.

After defeating Ridgewood on Friday evening, the Rams have completed the regular season at 27-3. The Rams attempt at a fourth straight IHSA state championship starts Wednesday at Maine East. They enter as the #1 seed in the division 4A Loyola sectional and will face the winner of Tuesday’s game between Taft and Highland Park.

Heidkamp Builds Basketball Powerhouse at Benet

SPORTS SPOTLIGHT BY JOHN MONTGOMERY

It’s always a pleasant feeling to return home as a state basketball champion.

Things have changed for former St. Patrick basketball player Gene Heidkamp, a 1988 graduate who grew up in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood and played for legendary coach Max Kurland.

He competed against Benet, Marist, St. Joseph and Notre Dame, then returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach under Mike Bailey. After 12 years, he became head coach at Nazareth in 2002. He didn’t have much success at the La Grange Park school. Known as a football power, Nazareth has won six state football championships while winning only three regionals in basketball since 1980. In three seasons, Heidkamp’s teams were only 24-57.

So Heidkamp moved on to Benet Academy in Lisle in 2008. A longtime basketball power, Benet won 367 games and qualified for the state finals on three occasions under coach Bill Geist, who also played at St. Patrick. Geist’s successor, Marty Gaughan, who played at Weber, won 259 games.

“I owe my career to Mike Bailey,” Heidkamp said. “I view him as a mentor. Mike Bailey taught me how to coach the high school game of basketball. Mike Bailey taught me how to run a program. There is a lot of Mike Bailey’s influence in our program at Benet.”

At Benet, Heidkamp is a history teacher who is doing well on and off the basketball court. He guided the Redwings to the Class 4A championship last season and his current squad is 20-1 and ranked No. 1 in the Chicago area. His annual return trip to St. Patrick was successful last Friday night as Benet prevailed 53-43 for its 17th consecutive victory. It was St. Patrick’s third loss in 17 games. Benet’s only setback was to St. Ignatius (19-2). Perhaps Heidkamp was recalling last year’s 53-49 loss to St. Patrick.

“It was surreal to coach against St. Patrick,” Heidkamp said after Friday’s game. “It was a great high school basketball atmosphere tonight. St. Patrick has a great team. It is always special to come back and play at St. Patrick. We knew we were in for a tough game.”

Benet used its two-headed basketball monster of 6’8” junior Ed Stasys and 7-foot senior Colin Stack to prevail against the Shamrocks and their twin towers of 6’8” RJ McPartlin and 6’7” Omar Ajanovic. It is rare at the high school level to see four players at 6’7” or taller battling against one another. This was a heavyweight fight until McPartlin picked up his third foul late in the third quarter. The Redwings took advantage with McPartlin on the bench, scoring six straight points to take a 36-29 lead entering the fourth quarter.

“You take a big kid like McPartlin out of the game against their players and it makes a big difference,” Bailey said afterward. “Benet has a really good basketball team.”

McPartlin finished with only nine points in the duel of basketball titans while Stasys scored 14 and Stack accounted for 12 while guard Jayden Wright added 12, including seven in the final period. Ajanovic led St. Patrick with 12.

If the Shamrocks hope to return to State Farm Center in Champaign, they will need more consistent scoring to support McPartlin, who is having a fine season. The road won’t be easy because St. Patrick likely have to beat Loyola (17-4) and last year’s Class 3A champion DePaul Prep (17-3) or Evanston (16-3) at sectional play in Wilmette.

Growing up in Rogers Park, Heidkamp was aware of Kurland’s success at St. Patrick. In his long career, he won 658 games, but he never managed a trip to the state finals.

“I grew up coming to St. Pat’s games,” Heidkamp recalled. “It was such a great environment for basketball and such a great place. I always wanted to come here. Max was a legendary coach but he was even a better person.”

Benet and St. Patrick are coming off banner seasons and could face each other in the Class 4A championship game. Heidkamp lost three state final games before winning in Class 4A in 2025. In 18 seasons, he has posted a 441-109 record. Heidkamp was inducted into IBCA Hall of Fame for basketball players and coaches after last season.

“It was a little bit of relief to finally win a state championship after getting so close in the past,” Heidkamp said. “I was happy for our program and happy for our past and present players who built this program. Winning state championships is great but there are more important things in life.”

Heidkamp has a low key approach on and off the court. You could say he has built Benet into one of the state’s premier programs.  He is quick to give credit for his success to Kurland and Bailey.

“I would never say we have the best basketball program in the state,” he said. “I hope we can compete with the other teams. I hope we run a quality program.”

Heidkamp’s chief assistant, John Bonk, has a good read on his boss. “He is very dedicated and committed to every kid on the roster from 1 to 20. He is a super communicator and cares about kids and their success on and off the court,” Bonk said.

“I am not surprised at his success,” Bailey said. “When he was in our program, Gene had that it factor and communicated well with the kids. The one thing he still does well today is communicate with his players.”

It will be March Madness in this year's Class 4A state basketball tournament. The road to repeat as champions won't be easy for Benet.

Benet Coach Gene Heidkamp

DePaul Prep Falls to Benet 64-51 in Regular Season Finale

The DePaul Prep Rams closed the regular season Friday evening against Benet Academy at home in the Tom Winiecki Gym. The Rams dropped the game 64-51 against the hot shooting Red Wings.

The Rams finish the 24-25 regular season as champions of the Chicago Catholic League with record of 26-4. The Rams had two bigs wins against out-of-town powerhouses, Mater Dei and Vashon and eight wins against ranked teams. Their losses coming only to ranked teams, Kenwood, Brother Rice, Homewood-Flossmoor and Benet.

The Rams open the IHSA 3A playoffs on Wednesday against the winner of Monday’s Lake View vs. North Chicago game.

It’s been an amazing season. I shot thirty games but it didn’t seem like that many. It went fast. On to the playoffs we go. Only twenty-one days until the state championship games.

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.

Benet 60, Oak Park/River Forest 48 on Friday at Pontiac

Friday was a full day. First a morning trip down to Pontiac for two games then a quick trip back to Hinsdale for two more games.

Benet (14-1, 6-0) defeated OPRF (5-7, 0-2) 60-48 in the third game on Friday. The Redwings have since advanced to the Pontiac championship game by virtue of an overtime 59-58 victory over Bloom on Saturday only to lose later in the day in another overtime game to Curie 69-66 and finish second in the Pontiac Holiday Tournament.

Previously unbeaten and ninth ranked Benet certainly proved that is team, largely made up of sophomore, is an elite team that will surely rise in the rankings given its showing at Pontiac.

These are a few photos from the game.

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!

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).