LADUE, Mo. – The MICDS Don Maurer Holiday Invitational has played out perfectly for the Edwardsville Tigers thus far.
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After last year’s first-round loss to Parkway South, the eventual tournament winners, the Tigers won the consolation bracket convincingly, beating Parkway Central 49-36 in the consolation final.
Edwardsville and Central met again this year, this time in the second round/quarterfinals.
The Tigers’ top-three scorers would combine for 55 points as Edwardsville took care of the Colts by a score of 74-49, moving into the semifinals. Edwardsville, which came into the tournament with the No. 3 seed, will take on No. 2-seeded Francis Howell on Thursday, Dec. 28 at 7:45 p.m. at MICDS.
Parkway Central’s Ty Adams opened the scoring Tuesday night drilling a three-pointer to take an early lead, his team’s only lead of the game.
AJ Tillman and Malik Allen scored back-to-back baskets to go ahead 4-3. From there Edwardsville never surrendered that lead, pushing it to 16-9 after the first quarter.
This game, being the tournament’s eighth game of the day, of course, was running a little behind. The game originally scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tipped off just after eight.
It would’ve been easy for the Tigers to stumble out of the gates, but they sure didn’t.
They brought energy and a high tempo and were able to pull away to 39-20 at halftime.
“Maybe we’ll petition to start every game 30 minutes late,” EHS head coach Dustin Battas said jokingly. “I thought our enthusiasm was good, our preparation this morning was good.”
Herbert Martin and Allen led the Tigers with 20 points each while Tilman finished with 15. It was a career-high for Martin, meanwhile, Allen has been averaging 19.7 points per game. It was the fifth time this season he’s scored 20 or more points.
Allen’s defensive efforts have been on par with his offense as well.
“Malik has prided himself the last two years in guarding the other team’s best player,” Battas said. “Malik took a lot of pride in that challenge, and it was just a gutsy performance from him.”
Last night’s opposing best player was Oliver Kokal, who has also been averaging 19.7 points per game. Tuesday night he was limited to just nine points, still leading his team. Adams, Henry Kokal, and Keyron Rander added eight points apiece for the Colts.
“That’s probably our best defensive effort, all around, of the season so far,” Battas said.
The Tigers used eight three-pointers on the night to push the lead. Coming back onto the court after halftime, Tilman and Allen drilled back-to-back shots from deep to make it 45-20 and eventually 59-34 after three quarters.
The Tigers improved to 10-3 on the season and play in the tournament semifinals on Thursday. Should they win, the championship game is on Friday at 7:30 p.m. The consolation championship game would start at noon.
After this tournament, the Tigers have two strong opponents waiting for them in the new year. Edwardsville will play East St. Louis on the road on Jan. 2 and host Collinsville on Jan. 5.
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