Boys Basketball: Benet tops Brother Rice
by blake baumgartner For Sun-Times Media December 18, 2011 10:24PM
Benet sophomore Sean O'Mara goes up for a dunk in the Redwings' victory over Brother Rice Sunday at Benedictine University. | Jon Cunningham~For Sun-Times Media
Updated: December 20, 2011 3:44PM
Nine games into the young season, Benet’s defensive capabilities have become very apparent.
Establishing consistency on the other side of the floor is a process that the young Redwings have been getting better at slowly but surely throughout the first part of the season.
Sunday night was just another step in that process.
Sophomore big man Sean O’Mara and senior guard John Enochs both had their moments offensively in leading the way as Benet earned a 55-36 victory over Brother Rice in the second annual Eagle Club Shootout at Benedictine University in Lisle.
Enochs, along with teammates Griffin Hanekamp and Nick Mankowski, got the Redwings’ offense going early on by hitting from the outside.
Enochs had four of the Redwings’ seven three-pointers on the night and finished with 16 points, with 10 of them coming in the first half.
“The perimeter defense, (Brother Rice) tail off the curl screen,” Enochs said. “So after you set a screen, you’ve got to rely on your teammates to make that core cut and you’re gonna pop open on the three-point line. So that happened. It’s truly a tribute to my teammates.”
Grabbing the lead with a pair of buckets to answer a three-pointer from Crusaders guard Jim Barista to begin the game, the Redwings never trailed the rest of the way.
Benet’s ability to hit from the outside helped it quickly gain traction in the first quarter as it got out to a 16-7 lead with 2:40 left in the first.
“I always tell our kids (that) I never put pressure on them to make shots,” said Benet coach Gene Heidkamp, who garnered his 100th career victory as a head coach. “I think the defense has got to be the constant. If we defend like we can and we compete on the glass, that’s when the shooting’s on, everything working really well.
“When the shooting’s not on, we still have a chance to win. It may not be as pretty as we like, but the defense and the rebounding has got to be the thing, to me, is more impressive. That gives us a chance every night.”
Meanwhile, the 6-foot-8 O’Mara recorded 16 of his game-high 20 points in the second half as Benet (9-1) turned its three-point halftime cushion into a lead as large as 23 points late in the fourth.
“They started contesting more on our shooters after the first half and (our shooters) started knocking some down,” O’Mara said. “That really opened up the lane and I started going stronger to the hoop, too. I wasn’t playing (well). I wasn’t going very strong in the first half.”
Courtesy of a sharper defensive effort in the second half, Brother Rice, limited to just 14 points in the game’s last 16 minutes, became the seventh opponent thus far that the Redwings have held to under 40 points.
Senior guard Sean Fitzpatrick paced Brother Rice (6-3) with a team-high eight points.
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