Boys Basketball: Morris lost its best Friend
By Tina Akouris takouris@suntimes.com November 27, 2012 9:54PM
Updated: December 29, 2012 6:13AM
Morris coach Joe Blumberg could have predicted it, but the news that Danny Friend wasn’t going out for basketball this year still stung.
Friend, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound starting tight end/defensive end on the Redskins football team, informed Blumberg he wasn’t going to play basketball this season. Friend, who would have been a starting post player, is a senior who has a football scholarship to Indiana.
Friend had left the door slightly ajar as late as a few days before Morris opened its basketball season at the Coal City Tournament.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that Friend opted to take his senior year off from basketball, especially with a Big Ten football scholarship in his back pocket.
Friend helped the Redskins to the Class 5A state championship game, where they lost to Montini. Friend finished the football season with 15 catches for 282 yards and four touchdowns. He had three solo tackles in the 19-6 loss to Montini as Morris finished 12-2.
Fab frosh
Lincoln-Way West freshman Jon Marotta is going to be one of those players who gets talked about a lot — not just in two or three years but now.
Marotta is already 6-5 and had a rocking varsity debut against a solid Lincoln-Way East team last week. Marotta totaled nine points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots in what coach Jon White said was “a very good game for a freshman.”
Good omen
Even though Bolingbrook lost its preseason No. 1 ranking when it lost the title game at the Joliet West Tournament to the host Tigers, the Raiders already are getting midseason performances from Prentiss Nixon, Kendall Guyton and Ben Moore.
The three are averaging double figures in scoring four games into the season. Moore leads the Raiders with an 18 points-per-game average, followed by Nixon at 16 points per game and Guyton at 15.5.
Disappointing
Of the 10 teams ranked in the preseason, Plainfield East (which started the season at No. 7) and Plainfield South (No. 9) each stumbled to 0-4.
