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Christian Benning’s late hoop lifts Streator past Morris: The Times Area Roundup for Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024

Senior guard netted a game-best 20 points and also broke program’s all-time made field goal mark in 53-52 victory

By Shaw Local News Network
Streator senior Christian Benning scored a game-high 20 points, including the game-winning hoop with 3.3 seconds left, while also becoming the program's all-time leader in made field goals in the Bulldogs' 53-52 victory over Morris at Pops Dale Gymnasium on Saturday night.

Streator senior Christian Benning scored a game-high 20 points, including the game-winning hoop with 3.3 seconds left, while also becoming the program's all-time career leader in made field goals in the Bulldogs' 53-52 victory over Morris at Pops Dale Gymnasium on Saturday night. (Photo provided by Streator High School)

Boys basketball

Streator 53, Morris 52: At Pops Dale Gymnasium, Christian Benning’s strong leaning bank-shot basket in traffic with 3.3 seconds left put the exclamation point on a record-breaking night for himself and gave the Bulldogs (15-4) a solid win over a tough opponent on Saturday night.

Morris led by one point with 23 seconds remaining, but on the fifth inbounds pass after four Streator fouls to try and reach the bonus, Cade Peterson tipped a pass away to Zander McCloskey, who passed it to Benning to set up the game-winning shot.

“We were able to force them into a long pass, got the tip we needed, then got into the hands of the guy we want with the ball in that type of situation,” Streator coach Beau Doty said after his team’s fourth straight victory. “We had a time out left, but I’m not going to call it when Christian has a full head of steam going to the basket like he had and with the game on the line. That was typical Christian, bully-ball at the rim and nine times out of ten he’s winning that matchup like he did in the final seconds.

“It was a great way for him to be able to cap off a record-breaking night and in turn help give us a tremendous win against a very tough opponent.”

Benning finished with a game-best 20 points and also passed former Streator standout J.J. Cravatta (2008-2012) for the top spot in most career field goals made with his 571st basket just before halftime. Logan Aukland added nine points for the hosts, while Peterson and Landon Muntz each chipped in six points.

Morris (10-8) had one last chance for the win, but Jack Wheeler’s off-balanced, fade-away shot was off the mark at the final horn.

AJ Zweeres paced Morris with 17 points, with Wheeler and Joey Vinachi adding 10 points each.

“Even though it was a game that could have gone either way, this was the type of game we needed,” Doty said. “We haven’t had, even going back to last season, many nip-and-tuck, momentum changing, lead changing games like tonight. Morris was coming off, I believe, three straight games that went down to the wire or went to overtime, so they had recent experience in tight games where we hadn’t.”

Morris led 19-15 after the opening quarter and 31-30 at halftime.

“(Morris) coach (Joe) Blumberg always has his teams so well prepared, and his kids play so hard and execute, so you know it’s going to be a dogfight. You’d better have your team ready to go,” Doty said. “We didn’t play very well in the first half, but fortunately we made six 3-pointers to keep us in it.

“We looked like a team that hadn’t played a game in a week and had a week of practice like we had with only two of them and one that had to be at 6:30 a.m. That said, Morris really took it to us in the first half and had us down eight with four minutes to go before halftime. We were able to cut to one at the break and then the second half was just a back-and-forth battle to the end.

“We had guys like Peterson and McCloskey really step up for us in the second half.”

Streator held the biggest lead of second half, 45-41, after a euro-step layup with 1:25 in the third by Aukland, but a left-wing trey by Zweeres and a drive by Caston Norris put the visitors up one heading to the fourth.

Streator opened the final eight minutes with a rebound hoop from Peterson and a layup by Benning to lead 49-46. Morris responded again with hoops from Zweeres and Norris around a rebound basket by Nolan Lukach to stay within 51-50.

A steal at midcourt turned layup by Carter Laudeman with 48 seconds remaining gave Morris a 52-51 advantage.

“We had guys make plays when we needed them to all night,” Doty said. “I’m super proud of the resiliency we showed in the final few minutes.”

Streator is next scheduled in action on Tuesday with a trip to Illinois Central Eight Conference foe Herscher, while on the same night Morris travels to Rochelle for an Interstate 8 Conference contest.

Flanagan-Cornell 57, Dee-Mack 42: At El Paso-Gridey High School, the No. 6-seeded Falcons topped the No. 11 Chiefs in the opening round of the 112th McLean County/Heart of Illinois Conference Tournament.

F-C (14-5) now advances to play No. 3 Tri-Valley in the quarterfinals on Tuesday at 8 p.m. at the Shirk Center at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington.

Girls basketball

Fieldcrest 65, Lexington 44: At El Paso-Gridley High School, the No. 7-seeded Knights defeated the No. 10 Minutemen in the opening round of the McLean County/Heart of Illinois Conference Tournament.

Fieldcrest (15-6) was led by 26 points from Macy Gochanour, 24 from Kaitlyn White and 10 from Pru Mangen. The Knights now advance to Monday’s 4 p.m. quarterfinal game against No. 2 Eureka at Eureka College.