03-10-15
BY JACK BULLOCK
CARBONDALE – For the Breese Mater Dei Knights, the quest to get back to the promised land of Carver Arena has taken 19 long seasons.

However this team has a shot at getting a encore performance with a win over Carterville at SIU Arena on Tuesday night in the 2A Supersectional.

After having helped christen the new era of March Madness in Peoria back in 1996 with a second place finish to Shelbyville, this program is looking for a return trip.

For head coach Ron Schadegg, who was a player on another memorable BMD trip to Carbondale in the postseason, this marks the return to where he played his final prep basketball game.

He was a guard on the 1983-84 Mater Dei club that was 30-0 heading into the supersectional where they lost a heartbreaking 53-51 decision to unbeaten McLeansboro, who eventually won the Class A championship four days later in Champaign.

In the two other supersectional appearances for this program at SIU, the 1995 club was highly-regarded (ranked #3 in the final AP poll) but were upended by Harrisburg in the “Sweet 16” 51-43 by Harrisburg, a team that they led 30-26 heading into the fourth quarter before being outscored 25-13 in the final eight minutes.

Matt Becker was a guard on that BMD team and is an assistant coach on the current Knights' staff as they head into the supersectional with a lot of confidence having topped a “who's who” of 2A powers.

The 1973-74 club, participating in Class AA, beat Belleville West 66-60 to win at Carbondale.

BMD eventually finished fourth at state that season under former head coach and current Illinois State Representative John Cavaletto.

This postseason has been special for this coach and program.

Breese Mater Dei defeated cross-town rival Central in the regional semifinals before stunning state-ranked and defending Carbondale Supersectional winner Nashville, 60-40 to win the Carlyle 2A Regional last Friday.

Wins last week over Greenville (66-61) and Pinckneyville (51-37) garnered the program its fifth boy's basketball sectional championship.

The combined won-loss record of those four teams; 103-22.

They will be, by far, the largest team that their opponent in the Carbondale Supersectional will have faced this season.

Nolan Gerling, a 6-foot-8 senior, 6-foot-7 senior Zach Haake, and 6-foot-5 Zach Dieters provide quite a presence in the frontcourt on both ends of the floor.

On Friday night against Pinckneyville, Ben Lampe, Sam Toennies and Nick Pollman made the Panthers pay dearly by trying to pack the middle to stop the tall Knights.

Lampe, a 6-foot-4 senior swing-man, topped BMD with 21-points while Toennies and Pollman added 11 and 10 from the outside as the Knights advanced by winning the 2A East Alton-Wood River Sectional.

For the Carterville Lions and head coach Scott Burzynski, it is a return home of sorts, having played at SIU for head coach Rich Herrin after graduating from Sesser-Valier in 1992.

Burzynski was part of three-consecutive Saluki teams that reached the NCAA Tournament.

He recently picked up his 300th victory when they topped Fairfield on Tuesday night at the Benton 2A Sectional.

Victory 301 was even sweeter as the Lions roared late in beating four-time defending sectional titlist Teutopolis, 77-63.

The heart and soul of the 25-4 Lions are twins Will and Matt Galik, senior leaders who are topping the club in scoring with 19 and 14 points a game respectively.

Both stepped up big time this past week as they led the way to wins over the Mules and Wooden Shoes.

With both battling the flu on Tuesday, the Galik's helped Carterville to a 69-57 triumph before winning the school's first boy's basketball sectional since 1987.

Will Galik, a 6-foot-4 guard/forward, netted 46-points in two games in the sectional.

Matt, a 6-foot-1 guard, added 33-points in the two contests.

You really don't want to foul either of the twins or, for that matter, any of the Lions.

Will Galik hit 22-consecutive free throws in sectional (11-of-11 in each victory) and his brother hit 11-of-12 himself in the T-Town triumph.

As a team in the past two games, Carterville is 50-of-56 from the line (89.2 percent).

Carterville has a pair of shooters that will also test Mater Dei from the perimeter.

Blake Watson, a 5-foot-11 senior, is the son of longtime Saluki assistant coach and current University of Southern Indiana head coach Rodney Watson.

Austin Swalls, a 6-foot-2 junior, can also hit from the outside.

Inside senior Gavin James, a 6-foot-2 center, and 6-foot-5 sophomore Taylor Heil, will need to play well to try and deal with the Knights big frontcourt.

03-10-15
BY JACK BULLOCK
CARBONDALE - For the Casey-Westfield Warriors, the path to Carver Arena in Peoria has been a thorny one to say the least.

Battling injuries and inconsistent play against a tough schedule left this club not looking like a contender for a “Final Four” berth.

Heading into the regional at Oblong, the Warriors were playing their best basketball.

That fact was brutally obvious when they went on the road for their final regular season game on February 20th to Effingham St. Anthony, the second seeded club at the loaded regional they were about to take part of.

The Warriors were humbled, 78-44 in a contest that was no contest.

Suffering their 12th loss of the season, they looked like they were headed for a quick exit from the postseason.

However Casey-Westfield got their collective game faces on for the tournament and they turned things around in just a few days.

Not only did they gain some revenge against St. Anthony (57-33 in the semifinals, a 58-point turnaround) they also stunned and eliminated state-ranked Dieterich 53-48, to take home the regional crown.

Two opponents at the Effingham St. Anthony 1A Regional proved to be little more than speed bumps as they quickly quashed both Patoka and Nokomis by a combined 40-points to drag home the sectional plaque and secured a trip to SIU Arena, 157-miles from SIU.

The Warriors have been paced in the postseason by Cody Hollensbe, a 6-foot senior forward who has come up much bigger than his height around the basket.

After averaging 10.7 points a game for the season, he had games of 27 and 21 in the sectional in leading Casey-Westfield to the “Elite Eight.”

All of the troubles of the season are forgotten as the ABV Preseason Number One team can make it's first ever journey to the state finals with a victory over Mounds Meridian.

The Meridian Bobcats are also in search for a berth in the “Final Four” at the Bobcats have recently been very close to that summit but have fallen short.

Since going to four-class basketball, this program has five regional championships and two sectional titles but have yet to get to Peoria.

In fact, Mounds Meridian hasn't been to the big house since the 1971-72 season when the Bobcats were part of the first season of two-class basketball in Illinois, reaching the first Class A title game, losing to champion Lawrenceville, 64-57.

But this season, with new head coach Erik Griffin in charge, the Bobcats are on the verge of adding a chapter to the programs history.

Coach Griffin, a former assistant at Harrisburg and college standout at SIU, has led this team to a 25-7 record.

Included in this record are postseason wins over Cobden, Trico, Sesser-Valier and Cairo to get to SIU Arena.

Some of the more notable wins this season were against regional champion Metro-East Lutheran, Madison and Anna-Jonesboro, topping the Wildcats to win fifth place at the Eldorado Holiday Tournament.

David Davis, a 5-foot-11 senior, has been the catalyst for the club this season.

Davis has been the leading scorer with 16.6 points a game for a team averaging nearly 70 points a night.

He picked up three quick fouls in the sectional final against Cairo and missed most of the first half.

But he wasted little time in the final two quarters, scoring 16 of his team-high 18 in the rout of the Pilots.

Davarae Edmonds and Tyrone Nesby are also double-digit scorers (14.7 and 10.9 respectively) for Coach Griffin, a Carrier Mills native who previously was an assistant coach for Randy Smithpeters at Harrisburg.