Announcement
Walther Lutheran senior Brandon Smith had plenty of motivation for Wednesday's Class 2A Timothy Christian Regional semifinal against the host school in Elmhurst.
Memories of the Broncos' first meeting with the Trojans still haunted the 6-1 guard.
"I was upset with myself the first game," said Smith, who had six points, no rebounds and no assists in a 64-53 loss to Timothy Feb. 6. "I knew I had to come through for my team this time. We're here for each other."
Smith delivered with 25 points, seven assists, four rebounds and two steals to lead Walther to a 59-52 victory in the rematch.
No. 2 seed Walther (19-8) will now face top-seeded Immaculate Conception (17-10) in the regional final Friday, Feb. 27. IC beat Driscoll in Wednesday's first regional game in Elmhurst.
Walther lost to IC 57-40 Jan. 3 in Elmhurst.
"The last time we played, we had poor execution and they played extremely well," Walther Lutheran coach Robert Koehne said. "The big guy (Matt) Purdom just killed us and Antonio Taylor was dominant. We need to work hard to try and find a way to stop them."
Walther led 46-35 early in the fourth quarter, but No. 3 Timothy (19-6) rallied to within 52-50 with 1:23 left. Smith then converted a three-point play to stretch the lead to 55-50 before Jaaron Holmes hit a driving basket to make the score 55-52 with 21.9 seconds remaining.
That's when Danny Vassar came up with maybe the game-winning play with about 16 seconds left. Timothy was on the free throw line trying to draw closer, but missed the free throw and Vassar prevented the ball from going out of bounds with a diving save and fed Brian Jackson, who laid it in to help seal the win.
"That was a huge play," Koehne said.
Walther also received key contributions from Jackson (12 points, 5 rebounds), Logan Davis (6 points, 3 rebounds), Jeremey James (6 points) and Elgin Swanigan (4 points, 5 rebounds).
"Coach just told us to come out with intensity and don¹t take them lightly again," Smith said. "Last time they were missing (Peter Tameling) and we thought it was going to be easy. Today we played every quarter like it was 0-0. We played a full 32 minutes and that was the difference this time."
Timothy was led by Rob White (15 points), Reggie Greenwood (9 points, 7 rebounds), Rob Stein (8 points, 8 rebounds), Jaaron Holmes (8 points, 4 rebounds), Justin Peeples (6 points) and Mike Pizzello (5 points).
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