TOWN AND COUNTRY, Mo. - The two top-ranked teams in the St. Louis area met Thursday night for the championship of the Visitation Christmas Tournament.
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On one side was Edwardsville, who entered the contest at 13-0 and went in as the area's No. 1 large school. On the other side was Incarnate Word, who went in at 7-2, the area's No. 1 small school and holders of 11 of the last 13 tournament crowns, including last year's title.
In what turned into a blockbuster, Edwardsville, who had trailed most of the night, came from behind in the final quarter to grab the lead and held on to defeat the Red Knights 61-57 to claim the championship, going to 14-0 on the year while IWA fell to 7-3 on the year.
“They all did a great job,” said Tiger coach Lori Blade of her players. “We made some mistakes, but that's what Incarnate Word does to you, with the tradition they have – they're well-coached; they're a mirror-image of us, I'd like to think, because they're disciplined, they run good stuff.”
The Tigers went into the tournament as the sole representative of the Illinois side of the St. Louis area. “I don't know how many Illinois teams have been in it,” Blade said of representing the East Side, “but we'll take it – I was thrilled to get into the final. In the beginning, I was just hoping we could stay within range of (the Red Knights) – for them to come through and pull it out was great.”
The Tigers certainly knew they would find great competition in the tournament. “We love to compete,” Blade said, “and this is exactly what it was the last two nights. We'll learn a lot from this, win or lose – fortunately, we came out on top.
“We've got some things to look at; we took a couple of timely, not-great shots and a foul there at the end; we're not in that situation very often and we'll learn from it and go on. But I'm proud of this group for stepping up the way they did.”
Incarnate took the early lead after the two teams exchanged scores in the early stages of the game, IWA gaining the lead at 7-4 and holding on to it the majority of the game, leading 18-9 at quarter time; Edwardsville went on a run and battled back to pull to 31-27 at the half.
The Tigers behind scores from Rachel Pranger and Kate Martin, pulled back to to as close as 38-36 in the late stage of the third and entered the final quarter trailing 41-38, finally catching IWA at 43-43 thanks to free throws from Pranger and Myriah Noodel-Hayward, finally taking the lead with 5:41 left on a pair of free throws from Quierra Love and extending it to 48-43 with a three-pointer from Martin with 4:35 left. Undaunted, the Red Knights rallied back to tie it at 48-48 on a pair of Marisa Warren free throws with 3:53 to go.
After an exchange of scores, Edwardsville took the lead for good with Noodel-Hayward connected on a follow with 2:35 to go and extended it to 54-50 on a pair of Love free throws almost immediately afterwards. A Sonya Morris three-ball with 1:09 left pulled IWA to 54-53, but the Red Knights could get no closer as Edwardsville made plays when they needed to to hold IWA off.
Martin led the way for EHS with 19 points and seven rebounds on the night, with Pranger contributing 18 points and five rebounds and Noodel-Hayward 13 points and seven rebounds; Love also came up big down the stretch, coming up with 11 points. Morris led all scorers with 26 points, with Warren adding 16 on the night.
Noodel-Hayward was named to the All-Tournament second team and Martin and Pranger to the All-Tournament first team, with Martin being named tournament MVP.
The Tigers return to action with a Southwestern Conference game against O'Fallon at O'Fallon's Panther Dome at 6 p.m. Jan. 5, part of a SWC Mega Night featuring the boys and girls varsity and JV teams in action.
