Bench players clinch Batavia's 20th win

Jim Nazos and Erin Dwyer go back a long way, to their days playing basketball together at Marquardt Middle School in Glendale Heights.

Now they’re head coaches, Nazos at Batavia and Dwyer at St. Francis, and their teams were both under the Illinois High School Association limit for games played because of earlier cancellations.

So with the playoffs set to start next week, they decided to add a game on Thursday at Batavia with one unusual ground rule: neither team played its starters.

Batavia got its 20th win of the season, 55-38 as senior Josh Kahley scored a game-high 14 points and the Bulldogs used 15 players. That last part was the point, according to Nazos.

“I said it before, it’d be cool if these guys did something in front of people,” Nazos said. “It’s a game where [Dwyer’s] got a lot of guys, we’ve got a lot of guys. These guys have busted their [butt] all year, we wanted to give them a game.

“It’s good to see guys step up, guys that have worked all year that maybe were playing JV minutes only, [who] did a lot of good things.”

Dwyer was on board when Nazos pitched the plan.

“He reached out saying he wanted to try to get some more guys on the board,” Dwyer said. “So I thought it was a good idea to help us get some guys on the bench some minutes and help him out too.”

Kahley does get plenty of minutes in most games as one of the first wings off the bench. But his role is normally a little different than the one he filled on Thursday.

“I’m usually the defensive ‘make a winning play’ [guy], we call it,” Kahley said. “I still got to do that tonight but I had more of a scoring role.”

Nazos subbed early and often, and 10 players scored. Gavin Engelhart added nine points, while Brandon Berggren had seven points, three rebounds and two steals.

Reaching a benchmark for victories was meaningful for the Bulldogs (20-8), Kahley said.

“We had goals at the start of the season,” he said. "[DuKane] Conference was one of them. We didn’t get that [the Bulldogs were second behind Lake Park]. But 20 wins is big.”

Tanner Hozian scored 13 on 5-for-6 shooting to lead St. Francis (17-13), which finished second in the Catholic League White behind St. Laurence.

“We had a few young guys out there,” Dwyer said. “It’s a chance for them to play in what we feel like is a pretty good environment. We’re trying to win the game obviously. But it was good for them to see how they react to stuff.”