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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville girls basketball team celebrated its Senior Night and completed an undefeated Southwestern Conference season with a 62-19 win over Alton Thursday night in the regular season finale for both teams at Lucco-Jackson Gym.
In pregame ceremonies, the five seniors – Jaylen Townsend, Mackenzie Lyerla, Megan Silvey, Maddie Stephen and Morgan Hulme – were honored, along with their parents, as the Tigers jumped out to an early lead, were never headed, and played very well.
“Yeah, they did,” said Edwardsville coach Lori Blade. “They competed hard, and that’s what we expect them to do, but I’m really proud of their effort through the conference to go undefeated, and win the conference again. It says a lot for these kids, and what they’ve set out to do so far this year.”
And in a year where many observers didn’t give the Tigers much of a chance, both winning the SWC title and going unbeaten at 12-0 is indeed a great accomplishment.
“It is, and to go undefeated, you know, that’s always a goal is to win the conference,” Blade said, “and to make it even more special to go undefeated throughout. But now, we need to turn the focus to the postseason and get ready for next week. But these five seniors have done a great job leading the program this year.”
Blade will have many special memories of this year’s senior class, but there’s one that will stand out in particular.
“Oh, you know, they’re all different,” Blade said. “They’re all different as far as one big group. They’ve led us not only on the court, but off the court, because their team chemistry is really good. They’re good kids with good character, and they thrive on competing, and that’s what I love about them.”
Jaylen Townsend led the Tigers with 10 points, then Sydney Harris added 9 points, followed by Megan Silvey and Que Love with 8. Maria Smith and Morgan Hulme contributed 6 points and Jacquelin Anderson had 5 points and Kylie Burg and Maddy Stephen 4 points. Ivoree Lacey and Germayia Wallace had 5 points each for the Redbirds.
As far as the game goes, the Redbirds did play well defensively, but couldn’t find a rhythm to their offense, and couldn’t hit their shots, which made a big difference.
“I thought the first half, we played well defensively,” said Alton coach Tammy Talbert. “We had a goal of holding Edwardsville to 10 to 12 points a quarter, and we did really, really well defensively. But offensively, we couldn’t get into a flow, and we couldn’t get our shots to drop, and that made a big difference.”
Despite that, the Redbirds kept playing hard for the entire 32 minutes, and it’s something Talbert is very proud of her players for.
“Unfortunately, this season didn’t go the way we hoped to in a lot of ways,” Talbert said. “But the kids kept coming to practice, worked hard, fought through a lot of things, and worked really hard in the games.”
Edwardsville started all five of its seniors, and scored the first seven points of the game, with a Stephen reverse lay-up, a three by Silvey and a pair of free throws by Hulme to take an early 7-0 edge. Germayia Wallace then got a pass to score on the inside to make it 7-2, but they would be the only points Alton would score in the opening quarter, as the Tigers went on a 6-0 run for the remainder of the period, getting an outside jumper from Townsend, two free throws from Kylie Burg and a foul line jumper from Que Love to take a 13-2 lead after the first period.
Alton started the second quarter with a 5-2 run in the first 2:31, getting a free throw from Wallace and a pair of baskets from Ivoree Lacey sandwiched around a three from Sydney Harris to cut the Tiger lead to 16-7, causing Edwardsville to call time out. After the time out, Edwardsville reeled off 10 straight points, with Townsend scoring twice during the run, and Stephen, Burg and Love also scoring to extend the lead to 26-7. Two free throws from A’llurah Bowens made the halftime score 26-9 for Edwardsville.
The two teams traded baskets at the start of the second half, then the Tigers went on a 16-0 run, with a three-point play from Townsend, a basket from Harris, a three from Silvey and four straight free throws from Love after Wallace was called for a foul and a technical to make it 40-11. The run continued with Maria Smith going coast to coast to score, and another Harris basket to make it 44-11 before two free throws from Jayla Fox broke the string and made it 44-13. The Tigers then outscored the Redbirds 7-1 for the remainder of the period to make the score 51-14 after three, and forcing a fourth-quarter running clock.
Laila McNeal scored the opening basket of the final quarter for Alton to make it 51-16, but the Tigers were able to outscore the Redbirds 11-2 for the remainder of the quarter, going four-for-four from the line and getting a final three from Jacquelin Anderson to make the final 62-19.
Townsend led Edwardsville with 10 points, while Harris scored nine and Silvey had eight. Wallace and Lacey both led the Redbirds with five points, and Fox had three.
The Redbirds, who finished the regular season 6-19, will play Belleville West in their opening game of the O’Fallon regional Monday night in a 6 p.m tip at the Panther Dome. Talbert likes her chances against the Maroons, and feels it should be a good game.
“I think our chances are really good,” Talbert said. “We played two good games against West this season, we match up good against them, and both games were a battle. We’re physical, they’re physical, so it should be a good game.”
The Tigers, who end the regular season 27-2, will play the winner of Monday’s play-in game between Chatham Glenwood and Champaign Centennial on Tuesday night in a 6 p.m. tip at Quincy. Blade has a simple goal in mind for the opener.
“I just hope that we play well,” Blade said. “We’ll go and compete, and work hard, then hopefully, we’ll get some shots to go down, and be able to stay together as long as we possibly can through the postseason.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
