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“Stick to football,� they chanted at the Oregon-bound running back.

They’ll get their wish — just not soon enough to keep their Wooden Shoes alive.

Hill’s game-high 21 points, including nine in the fourth quarter, kept his basketball career going and kept Althoff’s quest for a Class 2A title going with a 48-37 win in the Carbondale Super-Sectional.

The Crusaders (30-5) will play in Thursday’s 2 p.m. semifinal matchup against Chicago Christ the King, which eliminated Rock Falls 58-44 in the Sterling Super-Sectional. They are two wins from adding a basketball championship to the 1A football title Hill helped shape in November.

“If I had my own camp and everyone else had their own camp,� said Althoff coach Greg Leib of the school’s multi-sport success, “we’d all be alone at the end of the night. I’m glad we have these athletes on our side.�

Leib was particularly glad to have them on his side in the last five minutes of what was a tense, low-possession slog in rush-hour traffic. That’s the game the Wooden Shoes (24-11) scripted and it’s the game that kept the Crusaders in check.

With guard Alex Kremer canning his first seven shots and scoring 12 of his 19 points in the third quarter, Teutopolis played Althoff to a 29-29 tie after three quarters. The Shoes trailed just 35-34 after two free throws by Landyn Thoele with 4:49 left and were shooting bonus for the game’s remainder.

Most of a sparse crowd of 1,090 in Banterra Center seemed to have taken up the T-town cause. The Crusaders’ lead seemed tenuous at best and about to disappear. Zach Winkeler (10 points, 8 rebounds) drew his fourth foul on Thoele's drive to the goal.

“We get everybody’s best shot,� Leib said. “We’re the No. 1 team in the state and we’re also a Catholic school, so they hate us all over the state. You can print that.�

You can also print this: Althoff got to a level the Shoes weren’t about to match.

Bryden Gryzmala popped a short jumper, followed by a Hill pullup that made it 39-34 at the 3:50 mark. Sensing the game was about to get out of his team’s control, Teutopolis bench boss Chester Reeder asked for time.

The Crusaders forced two more turnovers and Hill cashed in the second one for a 3-point play and a 42-34 advantage with 2:53 left. By the time the Shoes squeezed off a shot, more than two minutes elapsed since their last points.

The run became 13-0, capped by two more foul shots from Hill with 24.5 seconds left, before Teutopolis finally answered with a garbage-time 3. By then, Althoff was in celebration mode.

“The difference was we wanted it more,� Hill said of the fourth quarter. “We’re just a team that’s eager to win and I feel like we showed it in the fourth quarter.�

It also showed in two critical stats. The Shoes coughed up 16 turnovers in just 46 possessions, a 34.8 percent turnover rate that gets a team beat every time no matter how well it might do everything else. And the Crusaders converted those mistakes into 20 points.

That will have them boarding the bus Wednesday for Champaign, the first time Leib has taken his program to the state semifinals since the great Jordan Goodwin led them to the Class 3A championship in 2016.

“The last time we went to state, my little one was 9 (years old),� said Leib, referring to starting forward Patton Leib.

After the game, Hill broke into a grin when asked about Teutopolis students advising him about his career choice.

“Basketball’s my first love,� he said. “When they say that, it adds fuel to my fire. It gets me pumped up, and my teammates and coaches know that as well. They’re like, ‘Uh oh,’ when the crowd starts that.�