EDWARDSVILLE - Edwardsville junior guard Macy Silvey enjoyed a big weekend in helping the Tigers win their 12th straight Southwestern Conference girls basketball championship, scoring a total of 32 points in three games - seven in the quarterfinal win over Collinsville 68-29 in the quarterfinal on Thursday night, then led Edwardsville with 13 points in Friday's semifinal win over Belleville West 45-25, and to top it off, had a 12-point performance in in the final as the Tigers won a highly anticipated contest at O'Fallon 57-45.
In the semifinal win over the Maroons, Silvey connected on a pair of threes during a second quarter 12-0 run that helped the Tigers go on to the win.
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"It's always fun making big threes," Silvey said during a post-game interview that followed the win over West, "but it's also leads from, like, good passes from teammates and everything. And I think it's good for getting the tempo going."
The defense also shined in the second, shutting out the Maroons in the period, and the defense was also a big key in the quarter.
"I think we did really good job on the 2-3 (zone) this afternoon," Silvey said that day. "We have been practicing that a lot in practice. Our whole team did a good job with the 2-3."
Silvey was the team's leading scorer on the day, with Sydney Harris, the team's leading scorer this season, being held to seven points on the day. But Harris and teammate Katelynne Roberts contributed in another key statistic.
"Yeah, even though she didn't score that many points she had, I think her and Katelynne had 17 rebounds together," Silvey said, "which is really important too."
Silvey and the rest of the Tigers looked forward to the final at O'Fallon, a place where the Panthers dealt Edwardsville what turned out to be their only loss of the year, 60-41 on March 3. In their first meeting of the season six days earlier, the Tigers rallied from eight points down with just under three minutes left in regulation to tie the game before the buzzer, then went on to defeat the Panthers 67-62 in overtime.
Silvey and the Tigers were pumped up to be able to face O'Fallon once last time, with the SWC championship as stake.
Silvey thought in the final Southwestern Conference Girls Tourney games her team came out with a lot of energy.
"We worked on our defense and we just finished off our season really strong," Silvey said.
