BETHALTO - The Civic Memorial boys basketball team's season came to an end Wednesday night after a 43-30 loss to the Triad Knights in a Class 3A Regional Semifinal.
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The Eagles finish their season with a 14-19 record while Triad improves to 26-6 and has now won six straight.
The Knights won both regular season conference games over CM by scores of 46-37 and 65-31. They also won 58-40 when the two teams met in the Litchfield Tournament.
The game Tuesday night, albeit a 13-point scoreline difference, was a much closer game than the rest, and much more physical as well. Despite the loss, CM head coach Lee Green was not disappointed in the way his team played.
"They laid in all on the line. That's what I asked them to do," he said.
He said that his game plan was to always be physical.
"We're 0-3 against them, the first time we played them, it was a nine-point game, and I thought we competed well. But the next two we got physically manhandled, we got dunked on," Green said.
"I just told them that nobody's dunking on us and we're not laying down for anybody. We're going to set hard screens, we're going to play hard, we're going to block out hard, and that was the game plan."
Said game plan worked. The physicality of the game saw CM and Triad tied up at 23 after three quarters.
Unfortunately for them, the Eagles did not win the fourth because that physicality turned into late fouls.
Triad's AJ Mills opened the scoring with a three followed by a Jake Stewart basket and one and just like that the Knights were up by six.
Both teams were in bonus down the stretch, but it was Triad who had more successful trips to the line to close out the game.
Triad went 11-20 from the foul line, five of those made shots coming in the final frame.
"We had some costly turnovers that turned into some and-ones or easy layups," Green said. "We had a hard time scoring obviously, only scoring 30 points, so when you get down seven or eight in the fourth and they're going to sit on it, it's going to make it tough."
"We're right there. The kids did exactly what I asked. I said, give us a chance to win the game in the fourth," Green said.
Sam Buckley led CM in scoring with another double-double, his 14th of the season. He scored 14 points and had 16 rebounds. Dathan Greene scored four while Adam Ogden and Parker Parnell each scored three. Dalton Buhs, August Frankford, and Manny Silva each scored two points.
For the Knights, it was Drew Winslow with 16 and McGrady Noyes with 14. Mills had seven, while Stewart and Tyler Thompson each scored three.
The Knights now move on to face the Jersey Panthers (16-16) who beat Highland in their semifinal by a score of 57-52.
Jersey and Triad tip-off in the Regional Finals at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24 at Civic Memorial High School.
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