Joey Kramer puts up 17 points, five 3-pointers off the bench to help Marmion to win over St. Charles East

ST. CHARLES — Marmion sophomore Joey Kramer knew he wanted to start off the new year on the right foot.

So when he came into the game for the first time midway through the first quarter and knocked down three 3-pointers, it was just the confidence booster that he needed.

“When I saw them going in, I knew I had to keep shooting,” Kramer said. “It just gave me more confidence to keep going in the game.”

Kramer ended the night with a team-high 17 points, along with five of the Cadets' 10 3-pointers on the night, to help them to a 49-43 victory over St. Charles East on Saturday.

“We’ve got some guys that can shoot, so when they get hot, things tend to go well for us,” Marmion coach Joe Piekarz said. “We got hot early, and then we had a stretch where nothing was falling for us, but then we knocked down some big ones late, and that’s what you’ve got to do.”

Marmion (8-7) used five 3-pointers to build a 19-11 lead by the end of the first quarter. But the offense struggled to get anything going for the following 11 minutes, putting up just six points and allowing the Saints to crawl back and tie the game at 25-25 midway through the third quarter.

But with the threat of losing the lead, Kramer hit his fourth 3-pointer of the day, which sparked an 11-5 run from the Cadets to end the quarter and preserve the lead.

“We knew that we had to answer,” Piekarz said. “We knew that a good team like St. Charles East wasn’t going to let us run away with it. So it was a good moment for our guys there.”

Along with Kramer, junior Ali Tharwani came up big from behind the arc for the Cadets. The junior had 14 points and four 3-pointers in the game, including back-to-back 3s in the fourth quarter after the Saints had worked their lead to 36-35.

“I’m coming off a great tournament, and that confidence in the points I scored and everything else, it’s in my heart and in my head,” said Tharwani, who earned all-tournament honors in the Plano Classic Christmas.

Despite having multiple chance to take the lead in the second half, St. Charles East (6-7) couldn’t make the key shot fall. Saints coach Rob Klemm said getting down big in the first quarter was too much for his team to overcome.

“We just had untimely turnovers and our shooting wasn’t there, and those were the difference makers.” Klemm said. “When they hit those 3-pointers, those were momentum killers for us.”

The Saints finished the night going 4-of-21 from deep with senior Marco Klebosits being the only player to hit multiple 3s for the Saints. He led the scoring for the Saints with 13 points, with 11 of them coming in the second half.

With a tough DuKane Conference slate coming up with games against Geneva and Batavia awaiting next week, Klemm knows the Saints will need to come out hot early to make sure they aren’t chasing the entire game.

“The easiest way to close a gap is not making it happen,” Klemm said. “We just need to come out of the gate stronger and knocking down more shots from the outside. We’ve shown that we can play better, so we’ve just got to build on it.”

https://www.shawlocal.com/kane-county-chronicle/2025/01/05/joey-kramer-puts-up-17-points-five-3-pointers-off-the-bench-to-help-marmion-to-win-over-st-charles-east/