The odds were stacked against the Chargers. Homestead’s senior guard Zak Krueger was returning from a nine-game absence due to injury and Carroll’s own guard, sophomore Jalen Jackson, was out due to a knee injury. They were on the road, in one of the toughest environments in the SAC. They would have to face a vertically gifted Homestead frontcourt that features 6’6” Luke Goode, 6’4” Alec Grinsfelder, and 6’4” Grant Simmons. To top it off, Carroll just didn’t have a star player to keep up with Goode, the way that Snider had Michael Eley or Blackhawk had Caleb Furst.
But they didn’t need one.
Just one year after Zak Krueger’s demoralizing game-winner on Carroll’s floor, the Chargers returned the favor by stealing a win in Homestead’s gym, 61-53, and ending any hopes Homestead still had of sharing an SAC title. Ray Vollmer led the Chargers with 15 points and contributed to the Chargers’ early run that kept them in front the rest of the game.
“We definitely didn’t forget the loss last year,” Vollmer said. “That was one of the biggest things going into this game. With Jalen Jackson being out, I think we saw a lot of bench players step up and we played sound for the whole 32 minutes.”
Carroll’s depth showed on Friday. Zach Castator, who scored 10 points all season going into last night, scored 9. Richie Gross, who’s been steady all year, was Carroll’s second leading scorer with 14 points.
With this win, the Chargers improve to 15-4 overall and 7-2 in conference play. They also have the highest points for/against ratio scoring 1,141 points and allowing 856, making them the only SAC team to allow less that 1,000 total points this year. Homestead falls to 13-8 and 6-3, dropping 4 of their last 6 games.
So what does this mean on the last night of SAC basketball?
Well, Homestead went from having a shot at an SAC title, to now sitting in 4th place in the standings. Snider, Carroll, and Bishop Luers are all 7-2 in conference, but Luers gets the tiebreaker since they defeated both the Chargers and the Panthers this year. This means that the Knights are the SAC champs. This just shows how crazy this year has been in high school basketball. Homestead had everything they needed to win the conference, but never fully recovered from their loss to Snider. Snider was stacked, with Michael Eley and Dillon Duff among the best scorers in the SAC. The Panthers won their games against Homestead and Carroll, but they somehow couldn’t win against Wayne and Luers. Carroll might have been the best team this year (as they showed in the Holiday Tournament), but couldn’t find a way to win against Snider and lost a costly game to the Knights.
Which takes us to Bishop Luers, who was a talented team this year but certainly not anyone’s pick to win the SAC with Carroll, Homestead, and Snider all coming in with their own talented rosters. However, Luers’ win over North Side sealed it, as they won the games they had to win and found a way to overcome the three giants of the conference.
Give credit to Fonso White’s team. They went a combined 5-39 over the two seasons prior to this one, but kept their heads up and have now won the conference this year and have their sights set on a bigger prize down in Indy this March.
