COLLINSVILLE – O’Fallon used a 24-0 run in the second and third quarters to take complete control of the game in going on to a 55-24 win over Granite City in the quarterfinals of the 37th Prairie Farms Collinsville Holiday Classic Tuesday afternoon at Vergil Fletcher Gym.
The Warriors, coming off a dramatic 62-59 overtime win over Rockford East in the opening round late Monday night, had a 15-13 lead early in the second before the Panthers went on their run to take control of the game, but Granite kept hanging in and played hard throughout the game.
“We really summed the game up like this: O’Fallon is good. They’re really, really good,” said Warriors coach Gerard Moore. “Defensively, we weren’t able to get stops, offensively, we were ice cold. They did a lot of good things stop us from running our offense. We got into foul trouble a little bit early in the first half that kind of killed our momentum. So it was an uphill battle from there, because of the foul trouble. And their good pressure kind of bothered us a little bit.”
The Warriors have played very well, for the most part, this season, and Moore agreed that the loss to the Panthers was a bump in the road and looked ahead to the remainder of the tournament.
“It’s not over for us,” Moore said. “I think we’re in a really good position to win the next game. Hopefully, we can do a good job and get some stops and make some shots. These guys are playing really well; I think part of our misfortune today was that we played a nine o’clock game that didn’t end until almost 11 o’clock. So the kids might have been sluggish because of it. But I’m also going to give O’Fallon a lot of credit. They are good.”
The Panthers jumped to an early 4-0 lead on free throws by Kaleb Randolph and a basket from Caleb Burton, and after an exchange of baskets, the Warriors got a three from Tyrese Grose to cut the lead to 6-5. O”Fallon was able to increase the lead to 11-5 before a Tyrek Thomas basket and a three-point play from Grose pulled Granite to within 11-10. A Thomas three brought gave the Warriors a 13-13 tie, which is how the quarter ended.
Granite took its only lead of the day with an early second quarter basket by Mario Brown, Jr. to give the Warriors a 15-13 lead. The Panthers went on to score the quarter’s last 18 points, with a Burton basket giving O’Fallon the lead for good at 17-15, and from there, Jalen Smith, Burton, Donnie Whitfield and Peyton Mueller did the damage as the Panthers went out to a 31-15 halftime lead.
Burton and Tyler Lunning combined for the first three baskets of the third quarter to make the run 24-0 and the lead 37-15 before Grose scored off a rebound with 4:56 left in the quarter to break the run and give Granite its first points since early in the second quarter. O’Fallon outscored the Warriors 9-4 the rest of the quarter to give them a 46-21 lead, then in the fourth got a basket from Rini Harris to make the score 51-21 and invoke the running clock rule for the rest of the game. O’Fallon went on to outscore Granite 4-3 the rest of the way in going on to their 55-24 win.
Grose led the Warriors with 12 points, while Thomas added nine points, Brown had two points and Trevon Bond had a single point. The Panthers were led by Burton’s 14 points, with Smith adding 12 points, Harris came up with eight points, Mueller had six points, both Lunning and Randolph scored four points each, Whitfield had three points and Jaylen Jaye had two points.
Granite faced Mundelein of suburban Chicago in the fifth-place semifinals, then face a big second half schedule that includes a game at the Taylorville Shootout and face big games at Columbia Rock Bridge in Missouri and DeSmet Jesuit along with many Southwestern Conference teams, including Edwardsville, O’Fallon and Belleville East. But the tough games will be serving a purpose for the Warriors.
“It doesn’t get any easier for us,” Moore said. “We’ve just got to keep getting better, we’ve got to keep listening, keep working hard. Our coaching staff needs to be positive with the kids, and we’ve just got coach them up, and hopefully, they can get better. Really, all these games mean nothing if you’re going to lose in the first round of the regional. You want to play well when it counts in the regional. So hopefully, we can get the kids better and get them to play better in the regional so we can win a game or two.”
The most important thing is that both Moore and his players are enjoying each other and the team is working hard every day in practice.
“Oh, man, the kids are OK,” Moore said. “I’m having fun with this group. I think we’ve got a good group of kids and it’s always refreshing when we have a good group of kids that play hard for you and do the best that they can do.”
FIFTH PLACE SEMIFINALS
GRANITE CITY 41, MUNDELIEN 29: Granite pulled away in the fourth quarter to bounce back and advance to the fifth place game with a win over Mundelien.
The Warriors led after the first quarter 9-7, then went ahead at halftime 21-15, saw the Mustangs cut the lead to 27-23 after three quarters, but outscored Mundelein 15-6 in the final period to take the win.
Marc-Kell Longstreet led Granite with 17 points, while Tyrek Thomas scored seven points and Mark Yarborough, Mario Brown, Jr. and Tyrese Grose all had six points each.
MORE PRAIRIE FARMS COLLINSVILLE HOLIDAY CLASSIC — DAY TWO
CONSOLATION QUARTERFINALS
ROCKFORD EAST 54, TRIAD 48: In the consolation quarterfinals at Collinsville, Rockford East held on to post a win over Triad in advance to the semifinals.
The Knights took a 15-9 lead at the end of the first quarter, but the E-Rabs cut the advantage to 23-21 at the half, took a 36-34 lead after three quarters then outscored Triad in the fourth 18-14 to advance.
Ayden Hitt and Lane Mahnesmith were the leading scorers for the Knights with 10 points each, while Drew Winslow had nine points, Jake Stewart scored eight points, Brady Coon had five points, McGrady Noyes scored four points and Ben Winslow came up with two points.
QUARTERFINALS
COLLINSVILLE 60, MUNDELEIN 36: Collinsville got a big performance from Jake Wilkinson to advance to the semifinals of their own tournament.
The Kahoks led all the way, holding leads of 13-6, 30-23 and 47-29 after the first three quarters, outscoring the Mustangs 13-7 to move on to the semis
Wilkinson led Collinsville with 14 points, while Tray Swygeart added 10 points, Devin Davis had nine points, Matt Clark hit for eight points, Nick Horras, Deante Franklin and Dayton Horras all had six points each and Khahil Thorps-Watt had a single point.
SEMIFINALS
O’FALLON 50, COLLINSVILLE 49: O’Fallon came from behind to nip Collinsville and advance to the final for the first time in school history.
The Kahoks held a 13-12 lead after the first quarter, then extended it to 27-18 at halftime, but the Panthers came back to within 38-37 after the third quarter, then outscored Collinsville 13-11 to move to the final.
Swygeart and Wilkinson led the Kahoks with 12 points each, with Clark adding nine points, Nick Horras scored six points, Clark came up with four points and both Dayton Horras and Franklin scored three points each.
In the other games on the day, in the consolation quarterfinals, Wasilla, Alaska’s team got their uniforms and personal gear delivered to the team’s hotel early Tuesday morning, but the Warriors still lost to Oakville 66-37. In the other quarterfinal games, Decatur MacArthur won over Madison 58-29 and Quincy got by Lincoln 33-30. In the other 13th place semifinal, Triad defeated Wasilla 61-52, and in the consolation semifinals, Belleville Althoff Catholic defeated Belleville East 63-59 and it was Rockford East over Oakville 63-47. Lincoln defeated Madison in the other fifth place semifinal 24-19, and in the other semifinal, MacArthur defeated Quincy 58-53 in overtime.
The tournament concludes on Wednesday, with MacArthur taking on O’Fallon in the final at 7:30 p.m.
