02-18-12
BY JACK BULLOCK
GOREVILLE – Basketball has always been a game of offensive runs.

On Saturday night the Goreville Blackcats made the biggest run of the night hold up.

Breaking loose from Chester in the late part of the first quarter by going on a 10-0 scoring blitz to end the frame, Coach Todd Tripp's bunch took care of “Senior Night” business with a 71-55 triumph.

Not only did they send the senior's out on a winning note in their last game played at home, the Blackcats won their first Black Diamond Conference West Division crown in their inaugural year in the league with the victory.

Nate Webb, a 6-foot-3 senior guard, got Goreville rolling early with a pair of 3-pointers in the opening quarter and his frontcourt teammates Zeke Snell and Alex Andros did the damage inside as the Blackcats forced Chester to play from behind for the entire 32-minutes of the Saturday night contest.

“Our kids are playing hard and we've got some weapons,” said Coach Tripp. “We're feeling pretty good about going to the regional.”

For Chester, Coach Brad Norman's crew couldn't put together the type of game-changing run that they it needed to get back into the BDC matchup.

Hitting just 32.7 percent from the field overall (20-of-61) the Jackets didn't do enough offensively to cut into the Goreville lead.

Chester hit just 2-of-18 from behind the arc that contributed to its offensive problems.

“Normally (Jacob) Lochhead and (Kyle) Landon are going to drop a couple of 3's and you expect them to come out and hit at least one, two maybe three shots but they just didn't fall tonight,” said Coach Norman.“Hat's off to them. Goreville is a tough team. Offensively they are all ready to shoot. When they are ready to shoot the ball, you have to be ready to defend. If you put your head down for just a second, they are going to get that three off. We let Webb get off too many easy shots early. He got in a rhythm and the tighter we got on him the deeper (out) he went. It was tough to guard him early. If we could have gotten more pressure on him and number three (Tripp) we wouldn't have had to play catch-up the whole game.”

On the other hand the hosts were very good shooting the ball on this Saturday night.

Coach Tripp witnessed his squad nail 27-of-57 overall (47.3 percent) and a very good 9-of-22 from 3-point land (40.9 percent) in its win.

After the first quarter, Chester didn't trim the disadvantage under double-digits for the remainder of the contest.

The Yellow Jackets finished their regular season at 14-13 overall and 5-7 in the BDC West.

Despite Chris Schwartz's 23-points, which led all scorers, Chester trailed for the whole game.

Schwartz scored five points in the first quarter to get his team in contention.

After Webb had gotten Goreville in motion, Schwartz nailed a 3-pointer and got the ball in the paint for a in-close score to cut the Blackcats lead to just 9-7 at the 3:42 mark.

However the Blackcats caught fire with a 10-straight points to assume control.

Six-foot junior Dayton Tripp scored five of the points by hitting a 3-pointer from the top of the arc and then added a drive to the basket.

Teammate Blake Gray, a 5-foot-10 junior, drove to the basket in transition and scored while being fouled by Chester's Caleb Arbeiter.

His three-point conversion made it 19-7 at the end of the first frame.

Chester played pretty even with Goreville the rest of the way but couldn't slice into the lead as they trailed from that point forward.

The Blackcats got their next big scoring jaunt midway into the second quarter when Webb hit his third of five 3-pointers.

On the next trip down the floor, Webb took a lob pass for a lay in and a 32-16 Goreville lead with 3:55 remaining before intermission.

With Chester having to extend its zone defense to defend the 3-point arc, the Blackcats countered by getting the ball inside to Snell, who delivered a pair of key baskets in the second frame.

Scoring once in a halfcourt set and again on a fast break reverse lay in driving the baseline, Snell helped Goreville close the half leading 36-23.

Coach Tripp's troops appeared to have put the game on ice in the third quarter.

Six-consecutive points with Tripp hitting another 3-pointer and yet another conventional three-point play, this time by 6-foot-4 junior Andros, pushed the Blackcats' advantage to 45-27 with 5:25 left.

“We got the ball inside more in the second half,” Coach Tripp explained. “We really shot the ball well from three early. But then we started getting the ball inside and Andros and Snell took over there for a little while. And that was big for us.”

But to the Yellow Jackets credit, they continued to plug away and made one final push in the fourth quarter get to within ten points.

An 8-2 scoring move, highlighted by a pair of Schwartz drives to the basket, trimmed the Goreville lead to just 61-51 with 3:31 remaining.

But at this point, the Blackcats closed the book.

Snell added a key basket off of a missed free throw by Webb.

Chester was forced to press in the final minutes and Goreville made the Jackets pay by scoring a pair of transition baskets.

Senior Ty Taborn and Webb both took advantage of the Yellow Jackets pressure by converting fast break attempts.

When Webb scored with 1:29 to go which closed the scoring, Goreville had earned its 20th victory of the season and its first league crown in the new conference affiliation.

“For us the biggest change was we play teams “home-and-away” and we found out real quick it is hard to play at Trico. But our kids are playing well at the right time,” finalized Coach Tripp when talking about the BDC in comparison to the SEC, the Blackcats' former conference home. “This is the time of year we want to be peaking. That (stopping team's runs) is what you have to do to win conference championships and regional championships. Next week we'll see what we can do.”

Webb led the 'Cats with 21-points while Snell ended up with 14.

Tripp put together a good night with 11-points with a trio of 3-pointers while junior J.T. Russell added seven.

“Our legs gave out on us tonight. We went double-overtime last night with Sesser-Valier and we rode those guys pretty hard,” added Coach Norman. “Eventually that (fatigue) kicked in and Goreville is so good in transition and we were busting our tails getting back defensively and that ultimately we were getting back too deep defensively and we weren't recovering like we should on the shooters.”

Chester can point to its poor showing from behind the arc and its 13-turnovers in contributing to its defeat.

Coach Norman's club was outrebounded 34-26.

Following Schwartz, 6-foot-6 junior guard/forward Kyle Landon posted 10-points while sophomore Cody Mileur added seven.

A bright spot for the Yellow Jackets was their efficiency from the foul line as they coverted 13-of-15 tries.

Both teams will head into the postseason next week.

Chester will face Nashville at the Pinckneyville 2A Regional on Monday night while Goreville, the top seed at the Crab Orchard 1A Regional, will face the winner of the Zeigler-Royalton/Thompsonville Monday night matchup on Tuesday night.

Chester (55) – Cushman 1 0 2-2 4, Lochhead 0 1 2-2 5, Miluer 3 0 1-1 7, Heberlie 2 0 0-1 4, Landon 5 0 0-0 10, Rowald 0 0 0-0 0, Arbeiter 0 0 2-2 2, Schwartz 7 1 6-7 23.
2FG-18, 3FG-2, FT-13-15, PF-14.
Goreville (71) – Tripp 1 3 0-1 11, Gray 1 0 1-2 3, Shadowens 0 0 0-0 0, Webb 2 5 2-3 21, Cavins 1 0 2-2 4, Patterson 0 0 0-0 0, Herren 0 0 0-0 0, Snell 6 0 2-4 14, taborn 1 0 0-0 2, Russell 2 1 0-0 7, Andros 4 0 1-1 9, Brown 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-18, 3FG-9, FT-8-13, PF-15.
Fouled Out – None.
Technical Fouls – None.