Chesterton’s deep bench offering a wide variety of options needed in tonight’s home rivalry game against a Valparaiso squad that can go big or small

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

A deep bench is one of the factors that has enabled Chesterton, ranked No. 17 in the state 4A poll, to bring a 17-4 overall record and 5-1 DAC mark into tonight’s rivalry home game against Valparaiso (12-10, 2-4).
The variety of strengths that Chesterton coach Marc Urban can dip into off the bench amounts to a comforting security blanket heading into tonight’s contest a Vikings team that has the personnel to play equally well either with a twin-tower lineup or one that features four guards.
Valparaiso centers its offense around 6-foot-8 junior Maddux Wagner and sometimes plays 6-9 senior Corbin McConnachie with him.
Urban described senior point guard LaVon Redmond as “pretty shifty, pretty crafty. He is their engine, gets them going.”
JJ Janikowski, Michael Reeves and DayVon Williams can make teams that send too much help onto Wagner pay by draining 3-pointers.
Wagner stayed close to the basket and used his deft footwork to score 17 points in Chesterton’s 62-52 win at Valpo last season.
Urban described him as a “skilled 6-8 kid who can shoot it, he can put it on the floor, he can post up.”
The Vikings’ two conference wins were against LaPorte and Lake Central and they were ahead of Portage late until losing by a point.
Chesterton has four different players it can use to defend Wagner at various points in the game: 6-7 sophomore Bradly Basila, 6-8 senior Caden Schnieder, and reserves Gunner Ello, strong like bull and 6-5, and 6-6 sophomore jumping jack Tommy Kostbade, coming off a career-high 15 points Tuesday night at Lowell.
“We’re going to have to really pay attention to how we guard their personnel,” Urban said of a key to the game.
Chesterton has the personnel to adjust to teams that vary their lineups. When Malachi Ransom subs into the game it can be for one of Chesterton’s perimeter starters, junior Tobias Ray or seniors Logan Pokorney and Jaylon Watts, or for one of the big men as the Trojans shift to a four-guard look.
“Especially with Tommy kind of coming along here, we have a lot of depth, and we’re proportional in our depth and everybody brings a different piece to the puzzle,” Urban said. “Sometimes you want them to adjust to you, but we have the capability to adjust to what they do.”
Even if circumstances dictate that Urban has to go deeper than nine, he does so with confidence.
As 10th man in a nine-man rotation, junior Ethan Virgil doesn’t get many minutes, but Urban trusts him in close games when either foul trouble or flu-absences surface. Virgil has rewarded his coach’s trust with efficiency.
In 11 games, Virgil has made 7 of 8 field goal attempts, 2 of 2 3-pointers and 5 of 5 free throws. He has more than twice as many steals (nine) as turnovers (four) to go with nine assists. Even when viewed through the lens of knowing that many of those minutes have come at the end of games, those are impressive numbers that both portend well for his chances of playing big minutes as a senior and for being ready to produce when needed this season.
Urban said beyond being attentive to how the Trojans guard the Vikings’ personnel and needing to prevent them from using their size to gain a rebounding advantage, adjusting to their frequently changing defenses is key.
“They’ll play man, they’ll run quite a bit of 2-3 and probably some 1-3-1 as well,” Urban said. “So they kind of try to keep you off balance offensively.”
Urban gives Ray high grades for recognizing the switching defenses and calling the right plays when it grows too loud for the hollering coach to be heard. Obviously, Valpo-Chesterton games tend to pump up the volume.
Typically, a big contingent of fans make the short drive from Valpo to watch the rivalry game.
“They do,” Urban said. “But I feel that our fans have outnumbered them in past years, so hopefully that continues.”
Tonight’s final slate of DAC games also has Merrillville at Michigan City, Lake Central at Crown Point and LaPorte at Portage. Chesterton stands alone in second place, one game behind Crown Point and one game ahead of Portage.