DEKALB ― The nation’s 12th-ranked boys high school basketball team, Lisle Benet Academy, and its two monsters on the inside were just too much for the hard-charging Auburn Knights during Monday night’s Class 4A DeKalb Super-Sectional.
So Auburn, and its do-it-all star, Amir Danforth, could not pull off the upset of a lifetime, falling 69-42, and losing one step short of a 4A state-tournament berth.
“It’s disappointing, because all of our guys felt like we were ready to play in this one,” Auburn head coach Bryan Ott said after his team shot 34 percent from the field. “And it really got away from us.”
Benet Academy (35-1) came into the March 9 game on a 31-game winning streak and ranked fourth in the state in any class, according to maxpreps.com, and 12th in the nation. Its lone loss this season was by four to Saint Ignatius College Prep (31-4), which was playing York in one of the other 4A super-sectionals.
The Redwings looked the part on Monday.
“Yeah, they made it very difficult to get shots off in traffic,” Ott added.
Danforth is NBA star Fred VanVleet’s nephew, and he is headed to North Dakota State University next year. He posted 28 points in last week’s sectional final over Guilford, and had 20 points in this one.
But Auburn was never in it after halftime.
“We were fighting as hard as we could in that first and second quarter, and we were in the game,” said Danforth, who surpassed 2,000 points and became the Knights’, and the Rockford Public School’s, all-time leading scorer this year. “But as the game went on, we just slowly lost firepower… We played as hard as we could, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t enough.”
Benet Academy slowed Danforth most of the second half, and slammed the door on the win down the stretch. Danforth did score right at his season average, and was 6-for-18 from the field and added two assists. But the Redwings’ starters shot 69 percent from the field, including a 7-for-7 effort in the second quarter, and they pulled away late.
Colin Stack, Benet Academy’s 7-footer who is also headed to North Dakota State University, teamed up with 6-8 junior power forward Edvardas Stasys to help the Redwings own the paint. Benet Academy, which had 10 players 6-3 or over on its roster, had six dunks and dominated Auburn down low, outrebounding the Knights 27-16.
“He’s just a force down there,” Danforth said of Stack. “Nobody’s going to finish around that guy.”
Stack had six points (all on dunks) and six rebounds, but he forced the Knights to adjust their shots all night. Stasys was 10-for-16 from the field and scored 20 points and hauled in nine boards.
And the Knights, who shot well while finding a way to upend Guilford in last Friday’s super-sectional showdown, couldn’t get shots past Benet Academy’s bigs. Auburn averaged 71.2 points per game headed into this one, but had 23 at half, and finished with a season low 42.
A pair of early 3-pointers from Kaidan Dozie helped Auburn (27-9) to its biggest lead of the night at 14-9. But Benet Academy continued to pound the paint, and its big guys used the baseline like a red carpet.
Danforth’s kiss high off the glass sliced the Redwings’ lead to four midway through the second, but the constant pounding inside bumped Benet Academy’s lead to 11 by halftime.
It only grew from there.
“Give Auburn credit, they came out and played well early on,” Benet Academy head coach Gene Heidkamp said. “But we got to it defensively, especially in that second half. That was it.”
Mikwan Marshall added 10 points and Dozie scored seven. Champ Parker went scoreless for the Knights.
When the seniors led by Danforth and Parker were freshman, Auburn advanced to the supers, where it was knocked out by Benet Academy, which finished in second that year, but won the 4A state championship last year. Auburn went 30-5 last year, but were upended in the first round of the playoffs by Hononegah in overtime.
And this time, it will again be Benet Academy in the 4A state semifinals on Friday. Not Auburn.
Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and sign up for the Rockford High School Sports Newsletter here at rrstar.com. Jay has covered a variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears and Blackhawks to local youth sports, since the turn of the century at the Register Star.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Big Benet Academy overpowers Auburn in boys basketball super-sectionals
Reporting by Jay Taft, Rockford Register Star / Rockford Register Star
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