ALTON – On a positive note, Calhoun's Grace Baalman was voted tourney MVP, but the Warriors bowed in the final of the Alton Tip-Off Classic Saturday night to Breese Mater Dei.
Breese Mater Dei took advantage of Warrior miscues and ran out to a 26-10 halftime lead en route to a 45-31 win over Calhoun.
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The loss put the Warriors at 2-1 on the year; the Knights remained undefeated at 3-0.
“When you have more turnovers than points, you're not going to win very many ballgames,” said Warrior coach Aaron Baalman. “We just had a poor effort in the first half; I thought we had a little better intensity in the second half.
“Breese Mater Dei is a basketball factory; they did a lot of nice things right, the pressured our wings and created some turnovers. It's a good learning experience; we can take that and fix some things in practice next week. It is what it is, it's early in the season and we've got a lot of new faces. We need to make some adjustments.”
The Knights' Kelsie Gerdes may have been a big factor on the outcome of the game; she scored 16 points and was all over the floor creating plays and opportunities for her team. “She definitely outworked us tonight,” Baalman said. “She got a lot of loose balls, lot of offensive rebounds and she was everywhere tonight; she knocked down some big shots. She's a heck of a ballplayer.”
Mater Dei faced a challenge of their own going into the game – finding a way o shut down the Warriors' Grace Baalman. “She's tough to defend,” said Knight coach Dave Kohnen of Baalman. “I thought our kids did a good job of pressuring outside so they couldn't lob it in (to Baalman), and then I thought our kids inside did a good job of tipping the ball too; I'm very pleased with how we played this tournament.
“We hit some rough spot, but when you're starting a freshman and two sophomores, you're going to have some rough spots. I thought tonight, we put those rough spots behind us. We didn't have the unforced turnovers we had the other night.”
The second term was what Kohnen felt “these kids are capable of doing. The kids I have out there, the kids on the bench, they're all good athletes. They have a knack of knowing not any one of them is great unless the other players with them work with them. They take a lot of pride in their defense; I thought they did a real good job with that.”
Gerdes is, Kohnen believes, one of the better players in the area that not a lot of folks know about. “I've been saying this for two years now,” Kohnen said, “I think she's the most underrated player there is. You look up, there's a loose ball or there's something, there she is.
“She gets overlooked sometimes because she's not flashy at all, but she'll get her nose dirty and she'll scrap for a ball.”
From the 16-point halftime lead, Mater Dei kept the Warriors at bay and keeping the lead consistent, getting scores from Myah Beckmann and Shannon Lamp to counter moves from the Warriors to attempt a rally. Calhoun could not cut the Knight lead to single digits throughout the half as Mater Dei ran out winners.
Gerdes led all scorers with 16 points, with Kierra Winkler adding 13 and Lamp 10; Baalman led the Warriors with 13 points, with Junie Zirkelbach adding 12 and Jordan Holland, Emily McBride and Emily Baalman each scoring two points.
In the third-place game preceding the final, Springfield Lanphier defeated Cahokia 54-38, with Jeniya Griffin leading the Lions with 24 points and Meyisha Jones, Makayla Brownlee and Katelyn Clark each getting 10 points for the Comanches.
Baalman led the voting as the tournament MVP, with Griffin, Gerdes, Zirkelbach and Beckman joining her on the first team. Jersey's Mackenzie Thurston; Jones, Brownlee, Jersey's Bethany Muenstermann, Lanphier's Jaala Smylie and Alton's Rayn Tally made up the second team.
The Warriors travel to Piasa Southwestern for a 6:15 p.m. Tuesday contest; the home opener comes at 6:15 p.m. Dec. 1 against Griggsville-Perry.
