CHAMPAIGN-URBANA – Dierre Hill, Jr., who led Belleville Althoff Catholic’s football team to the IHSA Class 1A state championship in November, is determined to lead the Crusaders’ boys basketball team to the Class 2A title as well.
Hill, a senior who will play football at the University of Oregon, led Althoff with 22 points, as the Crusaders defeated Chicago Christ The King Catholic 60-45 in the semifinals of the Class 2A tournament Thursday afternoon at State Farm Center on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.
The semifinal win takes Althoff’s record to 32-5 and advances them to the championship game against Chicago Dyett, who won the other semifinal over Peoria Manual 54-50, on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. The game will be televised on KNLC-TV’s digital channel 24.5 locally, and streamed on NFHS Network for a fee.
After trailing 14-12 at the end of the first quarter, the Crusaders went on the run in the second, outscoring the Gladiators 16-5 to take a 30-17 halftime lead. CTK rallied a bit to outscore Althoff 14-13 in the third to cut the lead to 43-30, but the Crusaders outscored the Gladiators in the final period 17-14 to take the win and advance to the final.
To go along with Hill’s 22 points, Bryden Gryzmala added 14 points for Althoff, while Luke Smith had nine points, Zach WInkeler hit for eight points, both Steven Brown and Patton Lieb had three points each, and Kyle Johnson had a single point.
The basketball championship would be Althoff’s third of the school year, to go along with the Class 1A football championship and the Class 2A boys soccer title both won this past November.
