Boys Basketball: Hinsdale Central speeds past Morton into regional final

HINSDALE – Morton wanted to increase the tempo of Wednesday’s Class 4A Hinsdale Central Regional semifinal against the host Red Devils.

The Mustangs got what they wanted but certainly not the result as the Red Devils ran past them, 72-60.

Hinsdale Central (18-11) advances to Friday’s regional title game against Curie.

“When we played man-to-man they took us apart,” Mustangs coach Tony Martinucci said. “We wanted to speed the game up. It was eight to 10 points (deficit) and then we played man and it went to 18.”

Morton (11-9) quickly fell behind 8-2 and made little progress eating away at the deficit, laboring through what proved to be a difficult half for both teams, yet still only trailed 23-18 at halftime.

The second half was a completely different game with the Red Devils more than doubling their first-half output with 51 points.

As the game picked up speed, the Red Devils were seemingly scoring at will while Morton senior Eliseo Gonzalez single-handedly kept his team in the game for as long as he could.

Gonzalez scored 25 of his 32 points in the second half, but the inside-outside offensive punch of junior Ben Oosterbaan and Emerson Eck was potent. Oosterbaan got to the basket while Eck was deadly from beyond the three-point arc with the duo scoring 25 and 23 points respectively.

When Eck buried a three-pointer with 3:17 left in the third quarter, the ball was shared by each of his teammates on the floor before he fired away.

“If you get him open, get him in the right spot, he’s not going to miss,” Oosterbaan said. “You just try to look for him, especially in zones.”

Eck was far from finished, hitting four more three-pointers and finishing with seven in the game.

“In practice we’ve been practicing a lot on shooting and my stroke was just on tonight,” Eck said. “And we had to keep hitting. They kept it close. There were a couple points where I thought we were going to break it away but they kept on fighting.”

Gonzalez hit three-pointers just before the halftime buzzer as well as to end the third quarter. The latter cut Morton’s deficit to 50-39, but after a couple more threes from Eck, including a second chance opportunity created by senior Jake Quast (12 points, seven rebounds), the Red Devils led 58-40.

“Once we sped things up, it changed the flow of the game,” Oosterbaan said. “I think everyone came out a little tight. In the second half we loosened up a little bit. I finished a little bit more above the basket and just took it up strong.”

Eck led the Red Devils with nine rebounds while Chase Collignon scored seven points, including the final two on a dunk off of fellow junior Evan Phillips’ pass off the backboard.

Sophomore Michael Barnes, junior Adrian Anderson and senior Anthony Martinez each had six points for the Mustangs.