Basketball Recap: Gibault Catholic Comes Up Short

Gibault Catholic's tournament run continued when they took on Sparta on Thursday. The Gibault Catholic Hawks took a 52-46 hit to the loss column at the hands of the Sparta Bulldogs. While losing is never fun, the Hawks can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Illinois basketball rankings (they are ranked 493rd, while the Bulldogs are ranked 158th).

Damian Lanton continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines for Sparta, going 8 for 13 en route to 23 points. Dariontez Monroe was another key player, almost dropping a double-double on 12 points and nine rebounds.

Gibault Catholic has been struggling recently as they've lost ten of their last 12 games, which put a noticeable dent in their 4-12 record this season. As for Sparta, the win (which was their third in a row) raised their record to 11-4.

Gibault Catholic will square off against New Athens at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. As for Sparta, they will take on Chester at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. Sparta is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 59.5 points per game this season.