Benet Academy, Joliet West fall in 89th Pontiac Holiday Tournament semifinals

With two Enterprise Newspapers area high school boys basketball teams playing, in the 89th Pontiac Holiday Tournament semifinals, we had hopes that the Benet Academy and the Joliet West could win this afternoon and play for the Tournament Championship on Saturday night.

Top-seeded Bloom, which led only 30-24 at the half, pulled away in the second half for a 61-42 victory over Benet and defending Pontiac Holiday Tournament champions from Chicago Curie defeated Joliet West 68-60.

Thus at 7:30 p.m, tonight, the 11-2 Tigers will battle the 8-3 Redwings for third place in the tournament

Bloom 61 Benet Academy 42

This one started out like it was going to be a very one-sided affair. Bloom (12-1) jumped out to a 16-2 lead.

Behind the long-range shooting of Benet's Jack Prock (11 points, three 3's) and 6-foot-8 Colin Crothers (12 points, eight rebounds), the Redwings only trailed 20-17 after one quarter.

With 6:12 remaining in the half senior Collin Gillespie buried a three-pointer that tied the game at 22-22.

Bloom's Dante Maddox Jr. scored nine of the Blazing Trojans' points in an 11-3 Bloom run to close the half, with Bloom ahead 30-24

Trailing 33-24, the Redwings went on a 6-0 run with buckets from Prock, Tyler Van Eekeren and Crothers to pull within 33-30 with 5:10 remaining in the game. With 4:20 Crothers went to the bench with his third foul and Bloom would close out the quarter.