Lemont’s season ends with sectional championship loss to Brother Rice

CHICAGO – One can’t call Lemont’s boys basketball season much more than a success.

Lemont went undefeated in the South Suburban Conference, won a regional championship and beat Marian Catholic on a last second shot to reach the sectional final. That’s a year after losing by 19 to Marian Catholic in the regional final.

By any metric, that’s a success.

Unfortunately for Lemont, one of the other things one could call its season: Over.

Lemont’s playoff run came to an end in the Class 3A Brother Rice Sectional championship with a 53-41 loss to the host Crusaders on Friday.

Brother Rice’s home court advantage was evident throughout.

The student section was raucous before the game even tipped off as they predominantly donned red, white and blue attire. The Crusader fans could often be heard chanting “USA, USA” at Lemont’s Gabe Sularski and Matas Gaidukevicius. Sularski is American, but plays for the Polish national team, while Gaidukevicius is from Lithuania.

Lemont wasn’t blaming the crowd for the loss after the game, however. Lemont took full responsibility for the loss after it struggled to contain the Crusaders' Marcos Gonzales and Jack Weigus throughout the night.

“I don’t think [the crowd noise] was detrimental,” Lemont coach Rick Runaas said. “I think the kids were just nervous in general with it being a high stakes game. We knew it was going to be high energy atmosphere going in as a sectional championship match.”

While the game was never fully out of reach until the final minutes, the final result looked like a good bet beginning in the second quarter.

Lemont’s only lead of the game was 4-3 early in the opening period and that was followed by a 13-3 run by the Crusaders. Brother Rice finished the first with a 16-7 advantage.

The Crusaders spent much of the second quarter with a double-digit lead with Lemont cutting it to 29-21 on a pair of free throws by Sularski in the closing seconds of the opening half.

The second half didn’t get any easier as the Crusader defense smothered Lemont, while Weigus scored 10 points in the third quarter. Lemont trailed 44-31 after three quarters and trailed by as many as 16 in the fourth.

Gonzales had 20 points for the Crusaders, while Weigus had 18. Sularski finished with 17 for Lemont, and Shea Glotzbach had 11.

It was a tough ending for a senior-heavy Lemont team. Lemont will graduate eight seniors, including four starters in Glotzbach, Gaidukevicius, Alanas Castillo and Simas Dyglys.

“I feel like we’ve grown a really close relationship with each other from practicing each and every day after school,” Castillo said. “It’s jut been like a family the past four years and adding Gabe this year helped even more. ... We definitely exceeded expectations this year.”

While there will be a lot of minutes and production to replace, the cupboard is far from bare. Sixth man Zane Schneider played almost as much as any of the starters and is a sophomore. Sularski, meanwhile, is considered by multiple recruiting services to be the top recruit in the state for his class.

Those are two key pieces to build around, and Sularski is already planning for next year.

“We won’t lose in the sectional finals,” he said. “We’ve got to stick it in our heads that we don’t want to have this feeling again. Zane came off the bench and was big today. I’m really excited to see what’s up for us next in June and the season next year.”

While this wasn’t the end Lemont hoped for, it’s also not truly the end.

“I feel like I’ve made relationships I’m going to have for the rest of my life,” Gaidukevicius said. “I basically grew up with all of these guys. We’ll obviously stay in touch. This might be the end of our basketball season, but it’s not the end of our friendship.”