Curie has been a guard-oriented team for years, but this season the Condors had the height to be more productive in the paint.
The change was on display on March 3, when 6-4 senior Kendall Holliday scored a game-high 21 points to lead Curie past St. Laurence 64-57 in the Class 4A Mount Carmel Sectional semifinals.
Justin Oliver added 15 points for the Condors, while Michael Oliver Jr. made three three-pointers and had 10 points. Keith Collins, a 6-8 senior, added six points and nine rebounds.
Noah Corro and Markese Peoples each scored 14 for the Vikings (27-7), while Reggie Stevens had 13 points and Jeremiah Toney finished with nine.
Holliday made 8 of 13 shots as Curie’s guards kept feeding the post effectively.
“That’s something we work on,” Holliday said. “We’ve all got chemistry on the team. They know when I’m cutting and they know when I’m there.”
Holliday’s layup in the first minute of the third quarter gave Curie its biggest lead of the game at 31-17.
St. Laurence, which started two juniors and three sophomores, then started clawing its way back. Noah Corro’s fast-break basket pulled the Vikings within 44-42 with 23 seconds left in the third quarter.
That’s when Michael Oliver Jr. stepped up.
Oliver Jr. hit a 3-pointer in the final second of the third to make it 47-42. Saquan Commigs’ steal and basket, followed by a Justin Oliver 3-pointer, gave the Condors a 52-42 lead and some breathing room.
Oliver Jr.’s 3-pointers helped pull some of the Vikings’ attention away from Justin Oliver.
“(I was) looking for my shot and also my teammates trusted me to make those shots when we went down,” Oliver Jr. said. “I hit that big 3 to give us that boost and it was just night, night from there.”
St. Laurence got as close as 57-52 with 2:07 left, but Curie closed it out at the foul line. The Condors made 14 of 17 free throws for the game.
“We (are) all a team,” Oliver Jr. said. “It’s 15 guys. So when one guy falls, we’ve got to pick him up and move, pull him toward the winning direction. Ain’t no ‘I’ in team at the end of the day, so I see one of my brothers falling, we all (of) us 15 gonna help him out.”
Curie got out of sync during St. Laurence’s comeback, Condors coach Mike Oliver said.
“We stopped playing Curie basketball,” he said. “We got rattled, and I don’t know how we got rattled with eight seniors. We started playing individually, like two or three turnovers. … I think our guards started playing for themselves instead of playing for Curie. … (St. Laurence) hit some tough shots, too. I think they hit about three or four 3s that (were) contested.”