COLLINSVILLE – Edwardsville's Caleb Strohmeier was right where he needed to be in the dying seconds of their Tuesday night game against Collinsville at Fletcher Gym.
The Tigers' Jack Marinko had the ball and drove to the basket; the ball came to Strohmeier, and all he had to do was bank it in off the glass with 2.8 seconds left to give EHS a 48-46 win over the Kahoks.
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“We work on that play a lot,” Strohmeier said of the play that led to the winner. “I was actually supposed to come up, but it was actually kind of a bang-bang play; it was a great pass by Jack and it was just one of those plays that worked.”
Tuesday's win was certainly a big win for the Tigers, especially at a place like The Purple Palace (as Fletcher Gym was called by long-time Piasa Southwestern coach Darrell Burd). “It was huge,” Strohmeier said of the win. “Definitely a great win on the road, but it was a good start; we've got Alton Friday.”
The winnng score came after the Tigers got possession with six minutes to go and held it for virtually the remainder of the game, holding to the ball for a bit more than three-and-a-half minutes at center court before calling a time out; it's not a particularly easy thing, considering the Kahoks were guarding the Tigers in that sequence; “it's really tough,” Strohmeier said. “We work on it at practice about every day, kind of simulating game time, but I thought we did a good job of executing it.”
The Tigers are at Alton Friday for a 7:30 p.m. start time before closing out the regular season at home against O'Fallon Tuesday night and Belleville East Feb. 23 before the IHSA Class 4A boys playoffs get under way Feb. 26.
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