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BETHALTO – Civic Memorial’s boys basketball team dropped a 40-39 decision to Triad Tuesday night in the Eagles’ opener of the Stove Top Stuffing Classic Tournament at CM’s gym.
The loss put the Eagles at 0-1 overall and in the MVC, while the Knights went to 2-0 on the year following a Monday night win over Granite City to begin the tournament and 1-0 in the league.
On the final play, the Eagles' Jaquan Adams took possession with the clock winding down, drove to the basket and put up a shot that bounced away as the buzzer sounded. “We'll take that shot any day of the week,” Eagle coach Doug Carey said.
Carey thought some of the Eagles' shooting woes on the night may have been a case of first-game jitters. “First-game jitters maybe,” Carey said. “I think we're better shooters than that. But yeah, we'll take that last-second shot (that Adams put up) any day of the week from Jaquan; it'll go in most times.”
Things were a bit tight for both teams early on; the Knights held just a 6-4 lead at quarter-time, but found a way to expand it to 18-12 at the half before the Eagles bounced back to open the second half, getting a four-point play from Jaxsen Helmkamp to quickly cut the Knight lead to 18-16 before taking a 21-20 lead thanks to a traditional three-point play from David Lane.
“Once we missed seven, eight, 10 in a row in the first half,” Carey said, “we started getting a little tight shooting and that just compounded matters. Defensively, I thought we were really good – (Noah) Moss got 18 or 20 (points; he ended up with 18) and he's going to get that every night.
“We did a pretty good job on him; we kept him off the (free-throw line) for the most part. I'm not displeased with the way we played at all; for a first game, I thought we played pretty well other than shooting the ball.”
“That's a good win for us,” said first-year Knight coach Josh Hunt. “I just told the boys that the story of life is dealing with adversity; usually, the individuals that are the most successful deal with adversity the best. Tonight, we didn't play very well; we didn't do much right, but at the end of the day, we dealt with that adversity, fought through it and came up with some big plays and big shots and at the end, a big rebound to win the game.
“I'm proud of the boys; they did a lot of really nice things at the end.”
Things went back-and-forth between the teams through most of the third term before the Eagles surged out to a 38-34 lead with 3:48 left thanks to a driving basket from Adams. Triad cut it to 38-37 on an Adams score with 1:48 to go before Jake O'Dell connected on a three-pointer with 1:17 left to put Triad ahead. Adams cut the lead to 40-39 when he hit one of two free throws with 54.8 seconds left before the deciding sequence where Adams drove the line and had a shot bounce away at the buzzer.
Lane led the Eagles with 12 points, with Adams and Helmkamp getting nine each; Adams had nine rebounds to lead CM, with Lane grabbing eight; O'Dell, Kyle Cox and Kyle Rood each had six points for the Knights, with O'Dell getting seven rebounds and Moss six.
The Eagles host Taylorville at 7:30 p.m. tonight as the tournament continues; a junior-varsity curtain-raiser opens the evening at 6 p.m. The remainder of the tournament will be played Friday and Saturday at CM, with the Eagles playing Nokomis at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Granite City at 6 p.m. Saturday.
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