At one point during the first half of Tuesday’s nonconference crosstown game between Wheaton Academy and West Chicago, Hayden Schroeder stole the ball and raced up the court with nobody in front of him.

It only could end with him dunking, which was what the 6-foot-6 junior did.

In the second half, Schroeder was the recipient of a near alley-oop off a steal and fast break from Alexander Enyedi.

It was that kind of night for both Schroeder and the Warriors as they cruised to a 64-31 win over the Wildcats.

“I feel like it’s a team effort, and we’ve been playing well,” said Schroeder, who had a game-high 24 points. “We started off pretty rough, but it’s really about the team, and once we started playing well together, that’s really how I score — playing off other people. But a lot of it’s scoring down low and getting open shots, especially 3s.”

The Warriors (2-3), who started three sophomores in their home opener, jumped out to a 16-5 lead after the first quarter and didn’t allow the Wildcats (2-2) to add to their point total again until the second was nearly halfway done.

By the end of the third quarter, Wheaton Academy’s lead had ballooned to 30, and coach Daniel Smith began to insert his bench players, much to the delight of the jersey-clad students who made up the Maroon Platoon.

No shots generated bigger reactions from them or the benched starters in the fourth than 3-pointers by reserves Titus Culver and Abram Lee.

“Those guys are huge,” Smith said. “They play the least amount of minutes, but they are so important in practice. They make our guys better.”

Schroeder, who sat the entire fourth quarter, got assistance from Noah Tink’s 14 points off the bench and fellow starter Donell Ausley’s nine points and five rebounds, four of them on the offensive end. Jackson Snider made only one basket but grabbed six rebounds and had three assists.

West Chicago’s offense was bottled up early by a tight Wheaton Academy defense that didn’t allow for much movement. It wasn’t until coach Roy Ramos also inserted his bench players toward the end that he saw what he was expecting from his rotation.

The 12 points the Wildcats scored in the fourth marked the only time they reached double figures in any quarter.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat anything,” Ramos said. “We got our butts kicked. I thought our togetherness in the locker room after a game like that — I heard a lot of the guys saying a lot of positive things. So that’s one thing I love about our group: They want to learn, they’re coachable and they are really like a close group for being such a new varsity.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20251202/boys-basketball/boys-basketball-schroeder-wheaton-academy-sky-high-in-win-over-west-chicago/