BETHALTO - The Civic Memorial girl’s basketball team hosted the Jersey Panthers Monday night in a Regional Semifinal matchup. The Eagles pushed past the Panthers to win the game 60-40.
This was a game that CM led the entire way, and one that the Eagles flew right out of the gate. It didn’t take long and by the end of the first quarter, the Eagles were leading 23-7. CM head coach Mike Arbuthnot says that he’s been trying to get his team off to a quick start and he did Monday night.
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It would have been easy for the Panthers to give up after a slow start, but they battled back to make things interesting heading into the halftime break.
Arbuthnot said his team “lost their mojo” in the second quarter, allowing the Panthers to claw their way back into the game, something that he had more words about.
“They were able to knock down some shots and that’s a tribute to them. They could have quit but they kept playing and they kept competing, you know my hat’s off to them,” Arbuthnot said regarding the Panthers’ resilience late in the first half.
CM came out of the locker room on a mission though as they slowly began to pull away from the Panthers. In the end, the Eagles went on to win by 20 and that’s due to a complete team effort.
Three players scored double digits including junior guard Aubree Wallace who led the team with 17 points. Senior guard Kelbie Zupan put in 13 and junior guard Olivia Durbin scored 12. The team effort was yet another thing Arbuthnot was happy with after the game.
“We’re all about multiple kids in double figures. We don’t want to be one-dimensional where one kid leads us with 20. We want to have multiple kids around 9-14 points”
The Eagles will need to put together another team performance if they want to continue their postseason run. This was CM’s fifth straight win so they’re getting hot at the right time.
The Eagles move on to play the East St. Louis Highschool Flyerettes in the Regional Finals on Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. The Eagles just barely beat the Flyerettes 57-55 back on Feb. 7 in their only meeting of the season. Expect this game to be a close one as well.
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