CREVE COEUR – A ceremony honoring De Smet state championship teams from volleyball, lacrosse and hockey was scheduled for halftime on Friday.
But before the celebration of their outstanding performances took place, the Spartans’ basketball team put on a show of their own.
“We had three state championship teams watching us, and we knew they would give us energy,” junior Dillon Duff said. “We had a good gameplan, but they gave us that extra boost.”
Riley Massey scored 23 points, Duff added 18, and De Smet led from start to finish, cruising to a 79-47 victory over rival CBC in a Metro Catholic Conference showdown at De Smet High.
De Smet (8-3, 2-0), which defeated CBC for a third consecutive time, won by the largest margin of victory for either team in the 61 games played since the turn of the century.
CBC (6-6, 1-3) employed a smaller starting lineup on Friday, and the Spartans quickly found an advantage on the offensive glass.
On the opening possession, junior Liam Russo grabbed an offensive rebound and found junior Owen Duff behind the arc to unlock a three-point barrage for the Spartans.
De Smet connected on 10 triples for the game, five in the first quarter alone, with several coming after offensive rebounds by Russo, Jordan Boyd and Braden Butler led to kickouts and ball reversals.
“Just guys making plays, sharing the basketball, playing with high energy,” De Smet coach Kent Williams said.
The Spartans led 21-8 after one quarter and had not permitted CBC’s top offensive threat Terron Garrett to attempt a shot due to Massey’s ball-denial defense. Garrett’s first point came at the free throw line with 4:03 remaining in the second quarter with the Cadets already trailing by 20 points.
“He’s a really great player and their leading scorer, so we knew we had to slow him down,” Massey said.
Slowing down the CBC offense allowed De Smet to speed up the game.
Excellent ball-handling and decision-making by freshman Will Foulk, who scored 12 points, helped the Spartans deconstruct the full-court pressure of CBC.
“He’s a player,” Williams said of Foulk. “He’s just learning how to play at this level. Tonight, he may have had a little coming-out party, but we see it every day in practice, so when we see it in a game, we’re not surprised.”
In the open court, Foulk often found Massey, who powered his way into the paint while Spartans’ three-point shooters stood at the ready.
“We all handled the ball really well, and that’s what got our open looks. We would break the press and we would have every option we wanted. Our team was hitting and we were just flowing,” said Massey, who went 9-for-9 at the free throw line.
The Spartans led 45-23 at halftime and never looked back.
During the halftime intermission, Massey joined the De Smet volleyball team as they unveiled their championship banner. The lacrosse and hockey teams also unveiled theirs, after witnessing a championship-level performance by the Spartans’ basketball team in the first half.
That performance was made possible through lessons learned during the Coaches vs. Cancer Holiday Tournament, in which De Smet played four games in four days and reached the championship game.
“We really stepped up our entire game as a whole,” Massey said. “We realized that, if we all come together and follow our principles, we can be a really good team.”
That team chemistry was made stronger with the re-insertion of Dillon Duff into the starting lineup. The quarterback of the De Smet football team that reached a Class 6 semifinal, Duff missed the Spartans’ first five games while recovering from injuries suffered during the season.
“My body was beat from football, but I worked my way back. I just wanted to get back and help the team as much as I could,” said Duff, whose 18 points on Friday was one point away from a career high.
Also helping that chemistry is a shared motivation. De Smet lost 48-47 to Ladue in a Class 5 district championship game last season- a game in which the Spartans missed several point-blank shots in the final seconds.
Then, they watched as Ladue advanced all the way to the Class 5 state title game.
“It’s a tough feeling. We knew we could have been there last year, but we feel like we have the tools this year and we have something to prove,” Duff said.
And with a 32-point dismantling of CBC, De Smet is proving that it is not far from reaching the levels of those three teams that provided an extra boost of energy on Friday.
“I told them, ‘This is what you came here to do – play Friday night, home MCC games.’ It was a great atmosphere and a lot of fun,” Williams said.