Goreville overwhelms Webber
40-17 rebounding edge leads to 74-59 title game win @ Christopher

11-26-05
BY JACK BULLOCK
CHRISTOPHER
- Most coaches will tell you that playing good defense and controlling the boards will win you a lot of games, and with it some championships.

But when your team out rebounds an opponent 40-17 during a championship game, more times than not you are going to take home the title.

Goreville used that rebounding edge and 26-points from Brandon Rogowski to win the school's first Christopher Thanksgiving Tournament title with a convincing, 74-59, win over defending champion Webber Township on Saturday night.

Using pressure defense and playing nine players, the Blackcats wore down the Trojans and never trailed in the contest.

Goreville looked sluggish in its first two victories over Sesser-Valier and Zeigler-Royalton to reach the title game.

But they found their A-Game just in time Saturday night.

"We scored a lot of our points tonight off of our press," said Goreville head coach Todd Tripp, who is 3-0 for the first time in his coaching career. "It was a great effort tonight by all nine of the kids that we can play."

Hitting the offensive glass, Goreville came up with 14-offensive rebounds in the first half, many of which resulted in points.
Early scores by Jason Robertson and Eric Duran got the Blackcats rolling.

Robertson rebounded his own miss on one trip and Duran had four early points on a fast break and also a drive in the lane to make it 12-5 with 2:19 to go in the opening quarter.

A baseline drive by Derick Trout and a 3-pointer by Bryce McKenzie for Webber cut the margin down to 12-10.

But seven consecutive points to end the frame gave Goreville a scoring cushion it would not relinquish.

An offensive rebound score by Josh Billingsley and two baskets by Rogowski, the second one a 3-pointer from the left wing in transition after a Webber turnover, made it 19-10 at the end of the quarter.

Goreville's Justin Hood, who was named the tournaments MVP, scored six points in the 19-point second quarter for the Blackcats.

Robertson added eight points to the total. His 3-pointer from the top of the arc with 4:31 left before the half doubled up the score on Webber at 30-15.

Bobby Madden stepped in line to do some damage for the Blackcats.
His 3-pointer from the right corner on transition made it 37-22 with 1:16.

Webber limped into intermission trailing 38-25.

"We didn't rebound or take care of the ball tonight," said Webber head coach Clarence Gross. "We simply got outplayed by Goreville."

After an inbound pass resulted in a score by Trout, Goreville finished the quarter strong.

Rogowski scored nine third quarter points.

This 6-foot-3 senior Rogowski stepped out and buried a 3-pointer from the top of the arc to make it 45-30 with 5:07 left in the third quarter.

Madden scored on three-consecutive possessions for the 'Cats.

A 3-pointer and two midrange shots from the right baseline extended the lead to 56-38 with just over a minute left in the quarter.

The lead ballooned to its largest of the night at 62-40 with 7:17 to go in the fourth quarter with Rogowski and Madden both scoring on drives to the basket.

But to Webber's credit, the kids didn't give up.

One final run by the Trojans made it interesting. Outscoring Goreville 11-0 in a 2:31 stretch, Webber Township got its crowd back into the game.

McKenzie, Trout and Cody Swartz all scored baskets in the run and when Blake Henry hit a shot from 17-feet with 4:58 to play, Webber had some hope at 62-51.

But that hope didn't last very long.
After a Goreville timeout, Coach Tripp's troops went back to putting points on the board.

Rogowski scored on a conventional 3-point play that started his own six point run.

Then Duran put together a run of his own with three-consecutive scores in transition.

Forced to press and overplay, Webber Township gave up fourth-straight fast break lay ups in that 12-0 Goreville run.

It finished off the Trojans and their 2-1 week at Christopher.

"There just isn't much good to say about a game like this," said Gross. "We've got some players that needed to step up in games like tonight and as a team we didn't play like we needed to play to beat someone like Goreville."

Rogowski topped all scorers with 26-points while Robertson and Duran chipped in 12 apiece.

Madden tossed in nine points to the Blackcats' total while MVP Hood scored eight points.

McKenzie paced Webber Township with 18, Trout added 15 to go with Swartz who added 10 for the Trojans.

Goreville also shot well on the night, hitting 31-of-59 from the field overall (53 percent) while nailing 3-of-4 3-pointers in the title game.
Webber connected on 23-of-50 shots overall but just 2-of-12 from behind the line.

The Trojans also hit just 11-of-21 free throws on the night.
Committing 21-turnovers as well, Webber struggled for most of the night statistically speaking.

"I have nine athletic kids I can throw out there and press and play hard," added Tripp. "When we have Rogowski, Duran and Robertson in the game we can rebound. Out press created a lot of easy stuff."

Goreville plays at Cobden next Friday night while Webber jumps right back into fire by taking on Sandoval at home Tuesday night.

 
1
2
3
4
Final
Goreville
19
19
20
16
-
74
Webber Township
10
15
15
19
-
59

Goreville (74) - Stone 0 1 0-0 3, Hood 4 0 0-0 8, Madden 3 1 0-0 9, Fischer 1 0 0-0 2, Robertson 4 1 1-2 12, Duran 6 0 0-1 12, Rogowski 8 1 7-8 26, Billingsly 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-28, 3FG-3, FT-8-11, PF-25.

Webber Township (59) - McKenzie 5 2 2-3 18, Henry 2 0 0-0 4, Trout 6 0 3-9 15, Loker 2 0 0-1 4, Swartz 3 0 4-6 10, Chambliss 1 0 0-0 2, Scott 1 0 2-2 4, Skorch 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-21, 3FG-2, FT-11-21, PF-17.

Fouled Out - None.
Technical Fouls - None.
In other games, Christopher won the third place game by beating rival Zeigler-Royalton 45-43. Cobden beat Sesser-Valier, 63-46 to win consolation championship while Egyptian topped Wayne City 68-59 to take home seventh place.
Eleven players were named to the All-Tournament Team.

Justin Hood, Goreville - Most Valuable Player
Aaron Jones, Zeigler-Royalton
Will Toney, Christopher
Bryce McKenzie, Webber Township
Nick Minor, Christopher
Chad Menkowski, Zeigler-Royalton
Brandon Rogowski, Goreville
Todd Carpenter, Sesser-Valier
Chalen Payne, Egyptian
Jacob Talbert, Wayne City
Cody Swartz, Webber Township

Christopher won the Cheerleader Award.