“Hail to the Friars, who downed Hales,” read the headline in this space two weeks ago.
Add Proviso East to the list of Goliaths slain by Fenwick.
The Pirates were ranked No. 6 by the Chicago Sun-Times entering their Dec. 27 match-up against the Friars in the opening round of the 45th Proviso West Holiday tournament. But Fenwick held Illinois-bound Brian Carlwell to 12 points, fouled him out at the end of regulation, and prevailed 55-53 in overtime.
Peter Flowers, who fouled out himself with 2:14 left in the fourth, was the catalyst for Fenwick with 15 points, seven rebounds, and three blocks.
Flowers drew a technical foul for arguing a call with 6:40 remaining in regulation and the Friars trailing 38-34. Proviso East led 44-41 when he fouled out. But sophomore Derrek Tartt, who scored nine points in only his second varsity appearance, tied the game at 44 with a three-point play, and then delivered a crucial assist for a Tim Shaw basket moments later to send the game into overtime. Carlwell, Proviso East’s 6-11 center, actually fouled out on Shaw’s basket, but the senior missed a free throw with 4.6 seconds left that would have won the game in regulation.
“I got a little too emotional and let it out there to get the technical, but I apologized to the ref later,” Flowers said, “and I think that was a good idea because he wound up calling the foul on Tim’s layup at the end of regulation.”
With both Flowers and Carlwell on the bench for the extra session, Fenwick won despite hitting only 4-of-8 free throws in overtime. Newman Delany hit a free throw with 32 seconds remaining to make it 55-53. Proviso East had three good looks at the basket in the closing seconds, but each shot rimmed out, and the Friars swarmed the court as the buzzer sounded.
Flowers deserved most of the credit for containing Carlwell.
“We knew he likes to go left, so we tried to double down on him. I think we got in his head a little, and he wound up fouling out, too,” Flowers said. “We know with this group of guys we can beat anyone, and we proved it tonight.”
The Proviso East win moved Fenwick into the championship bracket, which guaranteed more highly-ranked competition. Sure enough, Homewood-Flossmoor (No. 9-ranked at the time) was waiting in the second round.
The Friars nearly pulled off another stunner, falling 47-43 to the eventual tournament runner-ups. Down 11 at halftime and by a 42-32 count early in the fourth, Shaw got Fenwick back in the game with three consecutive three-pointers, making it 42-41 with 3:13 remaining. But H-F made it 45-41 on a three-pointer on the next possession, and Shaw’s 11 points in the quarter?#34;he was the only Friar to score in the period?#34;were not enough.
Shaw (19 points) and Peter Flowers (16 points, nine rebounds) led Fenwick, but the rest of the Friars combined for just eight points.
“We needed a third scorer,” Fenwick coach John Quinn said. “Xavier Humphrey had been averaging double figures for us, but he just didn’t get good looks [against H-F].”
The thrill of the tournament for Fenwick?#34;albeit in defeat?#34;may have come the next day, Thursday, when the Friars went up against Glenbrook North, the defending Class AA champs and consensus No. 1 team in the state entering the tournament. The Spartans are led by Duke recruit Jon Scheyer, and had won 35 straight games before losing to Proviso West in the second round.
Scheyer lit up Leyden for 41 points in the opening round, then set a tournament record with 52 points?#34;including 21 in a 75-second span in the fourth quarter?#34;against Proviso West.
That dropped the Spartans into the fifth-place bracket with Fenwick, who could take some pride in “holding” Scheyer to 41 points in a 66-36 drubbing. The Friars fell behind 25-11 after one quarter, Scheyer scoring 15 in the period, and it was 58-34 after Scheyer scored 16 of Glenbrook North’s 18 third-quarter points.
He wound up setting a tournament record with 140 points in four games, and Glenbrook North finished fifth, while St. Joseph went on to defend its tournament title.
Fenwick, meanwhile, left with a 1-2 record against three of the state’s best, and prepared to re-enter reality with a 7:30 p.m. game at St. Rita Friday night.