Jayden Riley sparks Yorkville Christian to win over Joliet Catholic

YORKVILLE – Jayden Riley loves getting his teammates involved. He’ll look to pass him teammates open well before he thinks about creating a shot for himself. In fact, on Monday night against Joliet Catholic, he dished out four assists before scoring the first of his 23 points.

Riley’s teammate, Jordan Purvis, was the primary beneficiary of Riley’s assists, with four of his eight three-pointers coming from Riley passes.

“I like seeing my teammates shine,” Riley said. “It just brings the whole team together.”

Yorkville Christian’s offensive onslaught spearheaded by Riley and Purvis propelled the Mustangs to a 94-84 victory over Joliet Catholic.

Yorkville Christian (14-6) came out shooting, jumping out to an early lead thanks in large part to the drive-and-kick attack of Riley and Purvis. Riley drew double teams on his way through the lane, leaving Purvis open for in rhythm catch-and-shoot opportunities, of which he converted three of his five first quarter chances.

“That’s the nice thing about having a willing passer,” Yorkville Christian coach Aaron Sovern said. “The idea is to let [Riley] go and we’ve got shooters all over the place.”

In fact, Sovern thought his star guard was passing too much in the early going, having to tell Riley to start attacking the basket more consistently.

After a scoreless first quarter, Riley put up 10 points in the second, doing so on 5 of 8 shooting.

Purvis wasn’t done either. After his impressive first quarter performance, the sophomore guard drained two more threes on two tries in the second quarter of play.

Purvis would add three more made long balls in the fourth quarter, and a pair of free throws, to finish the night with 26 points while shooting an unconscious 61.5% from the field (8-13).

“My passers get it right into my pocket,” Purvis said. “They make it easy to make shots.”

Joliet Catholic (7-7) did everything it could to keep pace with the high-flying Mustangs in the first half, but only saw the Yorkville Christian lead grow to 10 at the halftime break.

Despite a 52.0% shooting percentage by the end of the night, the Hilltoppers still found themselves behind the entirety of the game.

“We had some defensive errors where we can’t leave people open like that, especially after they’ve already hit five, six, seven threes,” Joliet Catholic coach Adam DeGroot said. “We just couldn’t string stops tonight.”

Joliet found its stride in the second half, shaving the Mustang lead that had once gotten as large as 15 points down to four, five, and three points at different points throughout the second half.

The push from JCA came from Jayden Armstrong and Donavyn Simmons, who both finished the night with 26 points. Armstrong did most of his damage in the third quarter, scoring 14 in that quarter alone to help the Hilltoppers keep pace with Yorkville Christian.

Simmons, on the other hand, started the game strong, scoring 10 of Joliet’s 13 first quarter points. He also finished with five rebounds and six assists.

But Joliet Catholic just couldn’t get the equalizer to fall, struggling on the boards.

“I thought when we did do a good job defensively, we just didn’t grab the rebound,” DeGroot said. “We gave them second and third chance opportunities, and at that point you’re not going to win that game.”

Noah Aguado posed the biggest problem for the Hilltoppers on the boards, grabbing an unofficial 28 rebounds on the night. He also notched 18 points, 14 of which were second chance opportunities.

“When he’s focused and finishing, that’s another dimension for us,” Sovern said of Aguado. “We haven’t had size like this in our school’s history.”

“Normally we’re playing five guards, so to have a guy down there cleaning up everything we miss down there is huge.”