Boys Basketball: St Ignatius seniors fly past Fenwick

Updated: December 2, 2011 10:52PM

St. Ignatius showed the value of experience as its senior-laden squad shot past a young Fenwick team 65-51 to open Chicago Catholic League play Friday night in Oak Park.

The Wolfpack (4-1, 1-0 CCL North) jumped out to a 7-3 lead with just over 2 ½ minutes gone in the game before the Friars (2-2, 0-1) hit a three-pointer to draw within one moments later. But St. Ignatius would never let the host team get any closer as some court savvy along with plenty of hot shooting in the second and third periods led to a 19-point advantage going into the final period.

“We hit some tough shots early and a bevvy of threes in the first half that kind of set the tone,” St. Ignatius head coach Rich Kehoe said. “It’s great when those are going in, and we ran a ball-control offense and later started to hit the big guy under the basket to put the game away. After a very frantic start to the game our defense held Fenwick to just seven points in the second quarter. They are a very young team, heavy on the sophomores and juniors, and I think that quarter helped us regain our composure.”

The “big guy” Kehoe referred to is 6-foot-8 senior Peter Ryckbosch, who had only two points in the first half after some foul trouble, but came to life after he picked up his fourth foul in the second half and scored 14 points to go along with seven rebounds.

“We ran a lot of offense his way later on with four guards on the court we hoped that they could create a breakdown in a half-court set and he’s pretty good at rolling around the basket,” Kehoe said. “When he goes out of the game we have some issues, we have no other big guys, so his play in the second half really helped us out a lot.”

The Wolfpack built their first-half cushion with the aid of some timely three-point shooting from seniors Marty McClure (16 points, six rebounds), who hit three from beyond the arc including back-to-back treys early in the second to give St. Ignatius a 20-13 advantage, and Brian Howard (game-high 17 points),who followed those up with a three of his own to make it 23-15 with 4:20 left before halftime and another one to make it 27-17 with 1:30 before the break.

“I consider Marty our most complete, best all-around player,” Kehoe acknowledged. “Brian also brings a lot of intensity and positive energy to our team.”

Fenwick was led by junior Luke Lattner, who scored 11 of his team-high 14 points in the fourth quarter, during which the Friars drew to within 12 points with 2:20 remaining in the contest. Senior Sam Ainsworth added 10 points and eight rebounds, sophomore Tom Planek chipped in nine points and six board, junior Josh Carlisle contributed eight points, while sophomore Keshaun Smith came off the bench and tallied seven.

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