DePaul Prep Pastes St. Francis 67-22; Lane Handles St. Rita 71-32

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

By Jack Lydon

It was a weekend of blowouts for Northside neighbors DePaul Prep and Lane Tech. The No. 1 ranked Rams (7-1) handled St. Francis (Wheaton) 67-22 Friday evening. The Champions (4-5) handled St. Rita 71-32 at the Team Rose Chicagoland Shootout early Saturday morning.

Despite the loss to national powerhouse La Lumiere at the preceding weekend’s Chicago Elite Classic, the DePaul Prep Rams are rolling. The Rams smothered the Spartans forcing outside shots and getting all the rebounds. Scoring inside and outside DePaul Prep’s size advantage was evident. They jumped out to a 19-0 lead on St. Francis (3-4) holding the Spartans scoreless until seconds left in the first quarter. And it wasn’t that close.

Despite the lopsided score, it was interesting to see the starting lineup for the Rams emerge after shifting starting lineups early in the season. The Rams have three returning starters from last year’s 3A state champions, Lashaun Porter, Rykan Woo and AJ Chambers. Rams’ sophomore forward Blake Choice and senior Sacred Heart—Griffin transfer, Zion Lee have grabbed the starting roles for the Rams. Even so, junior forward/center Magnus “Gus” Johnson and senior guard Pat Lovell are quickly off the bench.

Choice’ performance against St. Francis helped his effort to cement that place in the lineup with a big game that included four three-points field goals in the first half and five total in his three quarters of play. Rams’ head coach Tom Kleinschmidt confirmed he has settled on the starting lineup complimenting Choice on his improved shooting in recent games.

“I have been working on my shooting, it paid off today,” Humboldt Park resident Choice said.

“It’s a learning process,” Choice said of his starting role. “I am willing to do what my coaches tell me to do starting on defense and eventually my offense will come.

The Rams have some big games coming up this week with a late Sunday matchup against No. 3 ranked Kankakee and the Kays top rated players No. 1 ranked Lincoln Williams and No. 8 ranked EJ Hazelett at the Team Rose Chicagoland Shootout.   

The blowouts continued Saturday morning at Team Rose. The Lane Tech Champions rallied from string of tough losses against good teams, New Trier, Whitney Young and Lincoln Park, with a convincing 71-32 win over Chicago Catholic League White’s, St. Rita Mustangs.

“We have a lot of guys that can get to the rim and be effective. We have had a really tough stretch. Eight games and five top 25 teams. We told our guys, it’s gonna pay off. Today we showed that playing that tough schedule is helping us,” said Lane head coach Nick LoGalbo.

The Champions were led by 6’8” senior forward Matt Szafoni with 26 points in three quarters of basketball. Szafoni leads his Champions squad this year which contains seven sophomores. One of those sophomores is starter forward Cole Christian who finished with 18 points against St. Rita.

“Opening the game with a make definitely helps the confidence. That is something that I have struggled with the last couple games. But hitting a three with one of the new sets that we have just implemented is good for the team but also good for my confidence,” Szafoni said.

“[Matt] is evolving as a leader, him evolving as a playmaker and evolving as a rebounder are all things we are excited about,” LoGalbo said of Szafoni.

“We start four sophomores. But what’s really fun is that the sophomores are buying in and being stars in their roles. The seniors are leading and we are playing together.”

DePaul Prep 70, Niles North 50 in Season Opener

DePaul Prep has something to prove.

The three-peat thing is not a thing. Winning 2A and 3A twice doesn’t mean much when one is in 4A now. It sure seemed like business as usual as the DePaul Prep Rams came out against Niles North.

Well business as usual as it can be against a Glenn Olson coached Niles North squad. The Vikings came ready to fight, as always. All fired up and playing fast in the first half taking a lead into halftime. Niles North dropped in six three-point shots. A little unusual for the Rams to give that up.

“We were very upset about it. We made a change in our line up at half time. It wasn't the kid's fault who we took out. But we couldn't play with three bigs against that offense. They had one three in a second half,” said DePaul Prep head coach Tom Kleinschmidt.

The second half was a different story. All Rams. The Rams put up almost twice as many points in the second half as they did in the first half. Rashaun Porter and Ryan Woo lead the Rams with 26 and 20 points respectively.

It was a good look at this year’s Rams. We are going to see a larger rotation. We will see quite a bit of Blake Choice, Pat Lovell and others. Tom Kleinschmidt likes the four guard line-up but he has a bigger squad this season. We will still see plenty of four guard line-ups.

Toledo commit DePaul senior forward Rashaun Porter was matter-of-fact after the game.

“We just came together as a team [in the second half]. We realized that is simple to be a good defensive team if we just speak. Just saying“switch” can like go a long way to change the game. We did that as a team. We came together and we were able to pull out a wind against a very good team,” said Porter.

The No. 1 rank, the start of a four-peat season just didn’t seem to be a thing to this team. At least not in second half or after the game.

I think it’s because they were playing the why they play, which happens to be championship basketball.

Maybe it’s a little more. Maybe they still have something to prove. 3A is not 4A. It’s just strange to be writing about a team working on a fourth straight state championship at any level, let alone three different levels.

Something to prove is good thing.

DePaul Prep Wins Antioch Sectional 45-25 Over Deerfield

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

By Jack Lydon

DePaul Prep is rolling. Another dominant playoff win for the Rams. This time a 45-25 win over Deerfield in the 3A Antioch Sectional Final Friday. The DePaul Prep Rams’ success (30-4) is going way past impressive and moving into historic. This is DePaul Prep’s fifth Sectional championship in the last six seasons with playoffs. The four previous sectional wins ended with two third place finishes and two championships.

The Deerfield Warriors came into the game 24-7 fresh off an upset victory over Lake Forest, the number 2 seed in the sectional. They finished second behind 4A Sectional champ Evanston in the Central Suburban South Conference. They have height and shooters.

But the Rams are rolling. In the first couple possessions, it was evident that the ultra-quick ball movement of the Rams to their shooters in the corners was not going to be as open usual. Deerfield was too quick in getting into the faces of the Rams’ shooters.

Okay. Plan B—go  inside to Rashaun Porter.

The Warriors had no answer for that. Rams’ junior center Rashaun Porter opened the game with three dunks and eight of the Rams’ fourteen first quarter points. The Rams completely controlled the first quarter only giving up four points. Deerfield’s outside shots were not falling and the Rams quickly shutdown attempts to drive the lane.

The second quarter was not quite so dominant. Deerfield reeled off a 10-0 run late in the second quarter to make it a five-point game at the half.

 “We got beat on the glass. They had some desperation going. We relaxed. They beat us to the balls. They were more physical than us and they made some shots,” said DePaul Prep head coach Tom Kleinschmidt.

There was no panic. It was like, “okay, let’s just get back to work.”

Work they did. The Rams gave up only seven points in the second half, only two in the third quarter. This was against a Deerfield team that won twenty-four games this year. The Rams were just that dominant.

Kleinschmidt does not take the remarkable success of his teams for granted. “We’re not the Yankees or anything like that. We’re a good program. But people are just coming and expecting regionals and sectionals. We as a coaching staff just sometimes lose our minds because we know how hard it is to win. We don't take this for granted because we were on the other end of this ten years ago.”

Neither do the players. Rams center Porter, who in his first two high school basketball campaigns has won two state championships, was remarkably circumspect, “I'll just take it one step at a time. I just take all the information that soaked in, like being on the bench, to getting in a little bit of minutes, to having a big roll . . . now in big situations we can come together as a team.”

The Rams advance to play in Monday evening’s super-sectional (final eight teams) against Kaneland High School of Maple Park at the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates. Kaneland defeated Crystal Lake South 49-37 in the 3A Rochelle Sectional.   

Kaneland dodges a bullet with the IHSA immediately prior to Friday evening’s game. The IHSA released a statement late Friday afternoon that Kaneland had “allowed an ineligible student-athlete to participate in its last seven boys basketball contests of the season, including a Class 3A Sectional Semifinal win on March 5.”

IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson initially ruled that the school would forfeit those seven contests and would not be allowed to participate in its IHSA Class 3A Sectional Championship game. However, Kaneland appealed, and the IHSA Board of Directors reduced the penalty, allowing Kaneland to continue on in the state playoffs, but without the ineligible player.

DePaul Prep junior guard Rykan Woo was named to the Chicago Sun-Times “All Area” team Friday which recognizes the top players in the Chicago metropolitan area.