BETHALTO – Heading into an ever-important Mississippi Valley conference game, the Civic Memorial Eagles had lost three out of their last four games.
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One of those losses was to then No. 3 ranked Mount Vernon (3A), another to No. 1 ranked Breese Central (2A), and the other to a notoriously tough Chatham Glenwood (3A) team.
But when the Eagles hosted MVC rival Jerseyville on Friday night, they didn’t skip a beat.
CM opened the game on a 6-0 run thanks to a couple of free throws from Allie Truetzschler, one foul shot from Avery Huddleston, and a three-pointer from Marlee Durbin.
The Eagles led 10-2 before the Panthers stormed back to tie it 10-10. Ella Smith knocked down a couple of threes and Meredith Gray scored to make it a game.
Huddleston’s basket and-one gave CM a 13-10 lead after the first quarter.
The Eagles then opened the second quarter with three straight triples. Two of them came from Marley Ogden and the other from Huddleston. Those shots increased the lead to 22-10.
From there, the Eagles remained in control of the game, going on to lead 30-17 at halftime, 47-27 after three quarters, and eventually win the game by a score of 63-31.
CM went 11-for-24 from three land.
“That is pretty good, and actually we’ve been shooting it better here lately,” CM head coach Jeff Durbin said. “We had eight in the first half at T-Town (Teutopolis). We’re definitely starting to shoot the ball a lot better from the outside.”
Huddleston and Ogden both led the Eagles with 13 points apiece. Gracie Miller scored 10 points, Durbin had nine, Truetzschler had seven, Isabelle Edwards had four, and Bryn Helminger had three.
Only four Panthers scored, led by Gray with 15 points. She was held to just six in the first half, scoring most of her points late game when the Eagles were trying to get some bench players into the game.
“That was the number one goal, defensive-wise, to not let her beat us,” Durbin said on Gray. “We did a great job on her. Last time I looked she had 10 or 11 before we went deep into the bench. So, that was our goal, to hold her to single digits.”
Gray typically averages 19.6 points per game.
Cali Breeden had seven points for Jersey while Smith had six and Neely Goetten had three.
The Eagles improved to 17-3 on the season and are as of Jan. 15 ranked No. 9 in IHSA Class 3A.
More importantly, they’re 6-0 in the MVC.
“I sound like a broken record, but we talk about it a lot,” Durbin said. That was their one most important goal was the conference. They’ve been taking care of business and we’re in a pretty good spot.”
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