Westmont/IC Catholic Holiday Tournament
By Dan McGrath
It’s not Pontiac, or the Jack Tosh, or the Dipper – high school basketball holiday tournaments that draw the best fields and the most Chicago-area attention over the Christmas season.
But the 12-team Westmont/ICC Catholic event would have been a nice prize to claim for a Leo team that’s showing signs of progress three years into a scorched-earth rebuild.
It was there for the taking, but some poor decisions, some faulty execution and – let’s be honest – some suspect officiating undid the Lions in a 56-49 loss to host IC Catholic after a chaotic finish to Monday night’s title game in Elmhurst.
Neither team led by more than three points in the second half of a hotly contested game which IC led 51-49 with 14 seconds remaining. Leo Coach Jimalle Ridley was assessed a triple technical foul (and ejected) for vehemently protesting a non-call on a goaltending infraction that seemed pretty obvious to everyone in the gym but the officials.
Andrew Hill made three of six technical foul shots, and IC retained possession. Dan Fromolt added two more free throws after being fouled on the inbounds play for a seven-point final margin that was deceiving.
To set the stage: The Knights led 46-45 on a Fromholt free throw when Leo converted back-to-back steals into layups for a 49-46 advantage with 3:17 remaining. The Lions then went to a delay game in an effort to draw IC out of its clingy 2-1-2 zone and get to the foul line.
They ran more than two minutes off the clock before turning the ball over on a failed attempt to get it inside, and Hill tied the game on a three-pointer with under a minute remaining.
A Leo miss led to a long rebound and a runout opportunity for the Knights, and though Malachi Mandley’s layup rolled out, Jordan Hall followed the play and tipped in the miss for a 51-49 lead.
What followed was pure chaos.
After Leo atoned for a turnover with a steal off a double-team trap, Brian Kizer went to work along the baseline and muscled up a layup. We’ll never know whether the shot would have dropped and tied the game because IC Catholic’s Hill went up and snatched the ball out of the air between backboard and basket.
It sure looked like goaltending, but it wasn’t called, and all Ridley’s protests netted him was six free throws for the opposition and an ejection, which, per IHSA rules, will keep him out of Saturday’s game with Perspectives Leadership Academy in the Whitney Young Shootout.
‘I apologize for my actions, but you hate to see a really good game come down to that – it was goaltending, and it wasn’t called,” Ridley said.
“I’m proud of our guys. We played hard. There were some mistakes here and there, but for the most part we played well in this tournament. We’re walking out of here with our heads high.”
Hill led ICC with a game-high 17 points and Hall added 11. Designated shooter Matthew Sloan buried three of four three-pointers for nine points.
Ethan Jackson had 14 points for Leo and Jamarion Upshaw complemented his 12 with seven rebounds and two blocks. Dontae Bell scored 10 points.
“We’ll bounce back,” Ridley said. “We’ll learn from this, put it behind us and bounce back.”