COLLINSVILLE – For Edwardsville senior forward Caleb Strohmeier, the Tigers’ 63-52 win over East St. Louis Friday night at the 34th Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Basketball Classic at Vergil Fletcher Gym was his highlight of the Collinsville Tourney.
The win over East St. Louis was a very good bounce back for the Tigers, who had lost earlier in the day to Decatur MacArthur in the quarterfinals.
“I thought we bounced back, bounced back good,” Strohmeier said in a postgame interview. “We had a good game, and we were happy to get the W.”
Edwardsville finished sixth in the tourney on Saturday and now has an overall 9-3 mark. The Tigers dropped a 69-58 decision to Quincy in the tournament’s fifth-place game.
The Tigers return to action at O’Fallon on Friday night.
Strohmeier felt that the Tigers executed better against the Flyers, whom Edwardsville had defeated back on December 20. Strohmeier finished the game against the Flyers with 21 points.
“Obviously, we made a lot more shots,” Strohmeier said. “I think we just executed better, kept our head a little bit better. I felt like in the first game (a 64-55 loss to the Generals), we weren’t playing like ourselves. I think we just came back, just beared down and executed really well.”
And having beaten East Side twice in nine days is a quite the accomplishment, indeed.
“Oh, yeah, it is.” Strohmeier said. “They’re a great team. They’ve dropped a couple of games here lately, but they’re a very, very good team. A lot of athletes, and they can really play.”
As far as his own performance so far this season, Strohmeier knows what he has to do to keep being successful.
“I’ve been doing alright,” Strohmeier said. “I’ve just got to keep rebounding, and keep putting the ball in the bucket, and just keep working.”
And as far as the 2018 portion of the schedule, Strohmeier knows that it’s hard work and being prepared that’ll bring more success to the Tigers.
“We’ve just got to keep working, keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Strohmeier said. “So, just keep executing and keep playing well.”
And as the calendar turns to 2018, you can expect Caleb Strohmeier to be one of the hardest working – and one of the best – players in the St. Louis area.
