BETHALTO – Friday night was the Tyler Thomson show.
On the night that Triad was missing some key players, he stepped up and scored 33 points, a career-high, helping the Knights take down CM 51-40 for the conference win.
Before Friday, Thompson had never had a 20-plus point game. He put up 19 points against CM last season and then 14 points in the postseason against the Eagles.
It’s one of his favorite teams to score against.
“He’s such a skilled player. He’s been starting since he was a freshman,” Triad head coach Jeff Guidry said. “He’s always been a little timid for us offensively, and tonight was the night, we told him, with Drew [Winslow] out, we needed him to be aggressive and take control, and he did. I’m super proud of that kid tonight, he deserved a game like that.”
The game was close in the first quarter with the Knights owning a 9-7 lead after the first quarter. Triad opened the second on a 10-point run to increase the lead to 19-7 and led 22-16 at halftime.
The Eagles could have made it a little closer if they had sunk their free throws. They went 0-8 from the line in the first half and 3-13 on the night. Meanwhile, Thompson single-handedly went a perfect 12-12 from the foul line.
He went to work in the second half, where he scored 11 of those free throws and scored 21 of his 33 points. He helped end a three-game losing streak for the Knights.
“We needed this one,” Guidry said. “We’ve got a very tough schedule on the front end. We started out great, lost to a really good Waterloo team, kind of laid an egg on Saturday, battled with Columbia on Tuesday.”
The Knights won four straight to open the season, then lost three straight. They now sit at 5-3 and 1-1 in the Mississippi Valley Conference.
To go along with Thompson, Ethan Stewart scored nine points, Nolan Keller had five, and Mac Musgrave and Brody Hasquin each scored two.
“We came into this game really shorthanded. Winslow, our leading scorer was out, and we had a couple of guys sick,” Guidry said. “So, our challenge tonight was to give some of our JV guys the chance to step up, because we were going to have to use them.”
Guidry did not want to go into detail about Winslow’s injury. But before Winslow went out, he was averaging 14 points per game.
Before the game CM’s Adam Ogden was honored for becoming the newest member of the 1,000-point club. He led the Eagles with 10 points. Tanner Hokamp and August Frankford each scored eight, Jack Piening had five, and Parker Parnell had three.
The Eagles, now 4-3 on the season and 1-1 in the MVC, play a road game at Jacksonville before hosting Waterloo next Friday.
The Knights will host Highland on Thursday.
