Boys basketball: Hall becoming a second home for Grady Thompson, Princeton

SPRING VALLEY – It’s safe to say Grady Thompson and the Princeton Tigers like the Hall High School gymnasium.

They have won 11 of their past 12 games on the Hall hardwood, including two straight Colmone Classic championships.

The latest victory came Friday night with Thompson scoring 36 points and sophomore Noah LaPorte adding 20 as the Tigers cruised to an 80-47 victory over the rival Red Devils.

“It’s like the second home to us. The rims are kind to me, I’ll say that,” said Thompson, who repeated as the Colmone Classic MVP last week. “A lot of history for us here the last two years.”

“I joked with the Hall guys that this is kind of like our Wrigley North back in the day when the Cubs played in Milwaukee,” Princeton coach Jason Smith said. “We like playing here. The atmosphere is awesome when the crowd sits on the court like that. It’s just fun to play in this gym.”

The Tigers improved to 11-0 on the season heading into Saturday’s home game against Rochelle at 6:30 p.m.

The first quarter was the inside-outside show of LaPorte (14 points) and Thompson (9 points all on 3s), who combined for all of Princeton’s scoring as the Tigers turned a 14-13 lead to 23-13 at quarter’s end.

“[LaPorte] had a nice game. It’s nice having that length out there with him being athletic and tall,” Thompson said.

“I thought that was Noah’s best game by far. And I’m not talking about offensively,” Smith said. “I thought he rebounded the ball well for us, got it and go.”

Hall stayed close early in the second quarter, but Princeton scored seven straight to go up 29-17 and closed the half with an 11-0 run on the way to a 42-26 lead.

“We were unselfish. Guys were finding each other tonight. That’s exactly how we were practicing at the end of [Thursday]. I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Smith said.

Smith also praised the play of his reserves for “executing like crazy and running our sideline break. That’s just a reward for them for working so hard in practice.”

Thompson hit seven 3-pointers on the night, inching ever so close to the 1,000-point career mark with 989 heading into Saturday’s game.

“It’s good to start conference that way, 1-0,” Thompson said. “In the first half we could have played better defensively, but we cleaned it up in the second half. Got it done.”

Hall coach Mike Filippini took a realistic view of the Red Devils’ effort against the No. 3-ranked team in Class 2A.

“This week, we got a lot better than we were last week,” he said. “We beat St. Bede Wednesday. Princeton’s the third-ranked team in the state and haven’t been beaten yet. It’s not like I’m going to wake them up at 8 a.m. and have them run sprints or anything like that.

“We played well for about 2 1/2 quarters. The problem, it was the third-ranked team in the state. If we would have played like that in the Colmone Classic, we wouldn’t have played for ninth place. There’s no excuse to get beat by double digits to Putnam County and Mendota like we did last week in our own tournament.”

Filippini said it will be nice to get a week off between games, the team’s first break since the start of the season, and get some practices in.

Mac Resetich led Hall (4-7, 1-1) with 17 points.

Notes: Princeton won the sophomore prelim 42-29. Jordan Reinhardt led the Kittens with 20 points, and Liam Swearingen added 10. Braden Curran had 10 for the Red Demons .... Princeton senior Kolten Monroe started in his first appearance of the season, scoring four points, including a dunk to start the second half. Smith said, “He’s a beast. We’ve missed him. We’ve done well up to this point without him, but we’d rather have him with us than not with us.”