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HIGHLAND - The Eagles are state-bound. On Monday night the Civic Memorial girl’s basketball team defeated the Mahomet-Seymour Bulldogs by a score of 53-48 in the class 3A Super-Sectional.
With the win, the Eagles boost their record to 32-4 and make it 9 victories in a row.
Junior guard Olivia Durbin made seven three-pointers on the night. Five of them came in the second half. She finished with 25 points against the Bulldogs. In the past five postseason games, she has now scored 115 points, on average 23 points per game.
CM head coach Mike Arbuthnot once again had only good things to say about Durbin.
“I see it from her all the time and it’s just nice she is wearing white tonight. She’s a great shooter and she wants the ball. It doesn’t matter the score or time, she wants the ball.”
She had help though from senior guard Kelbie Zupan. The duo has been tearing things up this postseason. Zupan finished with 18 points, 12 of which came from the foul line. She went 12-15 from the free-throw line overall. She shot by far the most free throws of anyone in the game and maintained her composure when it really mattered.
Not a lot of people expected this CM team to make such a deep run. Arbuthnot gives credit to his entire team for coming together this season.
“It’s just the testament of these kids. When Claire went down, we felt sorry for ourselves for about two days and then it was like hey we got to move forward. We revamped some things and just had kids keep filling in.”
Arbuthnot did something special late in the fourth quarter. His side had a comfortable 48-42 lead with 57 seconds remaining in the game. So he decided to put on senior Claire Christeson. She had only played briefly on Senior Night where she scored her only two points of the year from the free-throw line.
She was subbed in with fellow senior Madaline Brueckner. So, when the clock hit double zero, all four of CM’s seniors were on the court to celebrate together and it was really something special.
Christeson seemed a little emotional about it after the game.
“It meant a lot. I didn’t know I was going in. I was really happy he put me and Maddie in together. Being back on the court altogether again was very memorable. It was awesome.”
This entire postseason run has been extremely memorable for the Eagles. Two overtime wins, getting to host Sectionals, and now they’re headed to state. Couldn’t have written it up any better.
But they still have work to do. CM will take on the Carmel High School Corsairs in the State Semifinals. They beat Sycamore 49-37 in their respected Super-Sectional and have a record of 26-7. That game is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday, March 3, at Redbird Arena in Normal, IL.
