EDWARDSVILLE - Junior forward Brennan Weller has been carrying a hot hand for the Edwardsville high boys basketball team recently, having scored at least 20 points in six of the Tigers' last eight games. On Feb. 7, in a thrilling 59-56 overtime win over Alton at Lucco-Jackson Gym, Weller had a career-high 34 points in helping Edwardsville to the win, but on Feb. 8, his streak stopped at four when he was held to 15 points as East St. Louis took a 52-45 win. Edwardsville was later awarded a forfeit victory when the Flyers athletic staff self-reported that they had unintentionally used an ineligible player in the game.
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On Feb. 11, Weller scored 26 points, including his team's first 15, as Edwardsville won on the road at St. Louis McKinley 36-21. Since then, Weller scored 22 points in a 73-39 win over Mascoutah on Feb. 14, and this past Tuesday, he scored 18 points in leading the Tigers to a big 38-36 win at Collinsville.
Weller has been helping to carry the team during the Tigers' current stretch, and in an interview that followed the win over the Redbirds, he credited his teammates for helping him to get open and get good looks at the basket.
"I thought the guys did a great job getting me open with screens," Weller said, "we did a good job of reading the defense, and coach (Dustin) Battas made some great play calls that helped put us in position to win."
The Redbirds rallied from nine points down in the fourth quarter to tie the game late and force overtime, and in the overtime itself, the Tigers hits six free throws to help them win, although Alton came back again and almost forced a second overtime at the buzzer, but Andrew Jones' shot hit the rim and bounced away. The Edwardsville bench wasn't worried though.
"We just wanted to keep our heads cool; we didn't want to panic or anything," Weller said, "because even though it was a little frantic, we had the lead the majority of overtime. I don't think we were ever down in overtime, so we just wanted to play like we were winning, and again, we kept our heads cool, and we got the win."
Weller works hard in the team's daily practices, and that work has been showing in the games lately.
"I work hard every day in practice," Weller said, "get a lot of shots up, execute everything I can offensively and defensively in practice, and just working hard every day. My guys are doing a great job getting me open."
Weller felt confident about getting a good result before the East St. Louis game, along with the back-to-back games against two quality opponents.
"That's right, no rest," Weller said with a smile. "We'll go out there and give it our best shot tomorrow."
And with the final two weeks of the regular season currently in progress, along with the upcoming IHSA Class 4A playoffs in March, Weller feels confident about the postseason as well but is taking things one game at a time.
"We're feeling good," Weller said. "As I say, we just want to take it a game at a time, but we're feeling pretty good right now. This was a big win for us, and we're just hoping to carry it on out the rest of the season."
The Tigers' 11-game winning streak is a big thing for the team, but Weller is hoping to keep things going a little bit further.
"Yeah, we'll take that," Weller said, "but we'd like to keep it rolling if we can."
