12-29-06
BY JACK BULLOCK
SESSER - Heading into its semifinal game against Vienna Friday afternoon, Coach Andy Johnson knew his Marissa-Coulterville Meteors would have to shoot the ball well and keep the mistakes down if they were going to pull off their third consecutive Sesser-Valier Holiday Tournament upset.

They did neither.

Committing nearly as many mistakes as they scored points, M-C had little to show for their bus trip in getting manhandled 59-30 in the first of the tournaments two semis.

With the presence of 6-foot-11 junior Brett Thompson in the middle of an extended zone defense influencing the proceedings, the Meteors saw most of their launched shots misfire.

Connecting on just 8-of-59 shots and having fumbled and bumbled away 21 turnovers, Marissa-Coulterville saw its record fall to 6-6.

“We’re six and six now and when we’ve lost games this season, this is how we’ve lost them; by shooting poorly and not taking care of the ball,” said Coach Johnson, whose team will play Waltonville in the third place game on Saturday afternoon at S-V.
“We didn’t step up to the challenge today.”

On the other side of the gym, the Vienna Eagles are flying high having now reached the S-V finals for the second consecutive year.

The afore mentioned Thompson wasn’t the huge factor on Friday that he usually is but with the problems that he creates from his height and length and the problems M-C suffered through, the Eagles were never in danger of becoming the Meteors’ third conquest of the tournament.

Thompson finished with 14 points, five rebounds and a couple of blocked shots as the play of his teammates continue to get overlooked.

Derek Trovillion scored 18 points for Coach Rick Metcalf’s club while Kyle Willis ended up with 13.

The Eagles were the near polar opposite of Marissa-Coulterville on the stat sheet, having made good on 20-of-37 shots from the field and 4-of-5 from behind the 3-point line Vienna is playing very good basketball at the right time.

Being aware that Marissa-Coulterville had taken out Christopher and Goreville the previous two days at the event, Vienna wasn’t going to have its name added to the list.

Jumping out to a 7-0 lead in the first 3:10, Vienna set the tone.

Thompson scored on two offensive rebounds in the streak and Trovillion drove to the basket for a score that forced Johnson to burn an early timeout.

Jordan Wagner scored on a short lay in to finally get his club on the scoreboard at the 2:15 mark and he added a pair of free throws with under a minute left.

Those were the only first quarter points for M-C.

Vienna finished its start with Willis taking the ball strong to the basket for a score and an 11-4 led at the first stop.

Vienna was coasting in the second quarter and fully content to watch the Meteors implode.

Craig Place and Wagner were the only bright spots for M-C on the offensive end. Place scored all six of the Meteors’ points in the second quarter.

On a drive in the lane and a baseline jumper, Place got his team to within 14-6 with 5:29 to go before the break.

Vienna had one problem on the night, as they didn’t really take care of the ball committing 13 turnovers including five in the second quarter.

But as was the case, Marissa-Coulterville wasn’t in the kind of zone to take advantage.

After a lob pass from Willis to Thompson produced a bucket, Isaiah Cornelius converted a pair of free throws and the teams headed off the floor at halftime at 22-10 Vienna.

“I was pleased at halftime that we were still in the game even though we didn’t take care of the ball well,” added Johnson. “If we turn those ten first half turnovers into some points, we are right there. Defensively we were doing a pretty good job.”

The Eagles removed the doubt of any sort of upset with a 7-0 sprint out of the lockerroom in the third quarter.

The same three Eagles, Trovillion, Willis and Thompson scored the points.

Trovillion finally got loose for a 3-pointer - one of three trifectas in the quarter – and Willis converted a couple of free throws.

Willis found Thompson on a lob that turned into an easy score and a 29-10 lead.

“Every game is different and today we didn’t get up and down the floor like we are used to doing,” said Coach Metcalf, who has a team sitting at 12-1 and on the verge of its first S-V title.
“But Derek (Trovillion) played a whale of a ballgame for us and he is in the running for MVP of this tournament. We didn’t do a good job of getting the ball to our big guys as much as we are used to.”

An additional 7-0 run off by Vienna gave the Eagles a 28-12 lead after Dennis Watts took a nice backdoor pass from Cornelius and converted.

Trovillion’s third long-range bomb ended the quarter at 44-17.

Wagner led Marissa-Coulterville with 13 and Place chipped in 12.

Wagner scored seven of his points in the final frame.
Vienna shot the ball well from the line in the game (15-of-20) and hit 5-of-7 in the final quarter.

The Eagles outrebounded M-C 27-14.

Marissa-Coulterville (30) – Choate 0 0 0-0 0, Ri. Weber 0 0 0-0 0, Place 2 1 5-6 12, Vasquez 0 0 0-0 0, Hodges 0 0 0-0 0, Ry. Webber 0 0 0-0 0, Wine 0 0 0-0 0, Weinman 1 0 0-0 2, Wagner 3 1 4-7 13, Parrier 0 0 1-2 1, Steele 0 0 0-0 0, Wilson 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-6, 3FG-2, FT-12-18, PF-19.
Vienna (59) – Willis 4 0 5-8 13, Watts 3 1 0-0 9, Cornelius 0 0 2-4 2, Trovillion 4 3 1-1 18, Thompson 5 0 4-4 14, Nichols 0 0 0-0 0, Stram 0 0 2-2 2, Belsher 0 0 0-0 0, Lasley 0 0 0-0 0, Robinson 0 0 0-0 0, Painter 0 0 0-0 0, Stevens 0 0 1-1 1, Murphy 0 0 0-0 0, Langston 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-16, 3FG-4, FT-15-20, PF-16.
Fouled Out – Wine, Wagner - Marissa-Coultervile.
Technical Fouls – None.

SPARTA 58, WALTONVILLE 44
Hitting just 2-of-23 field goal attempts in the final quarter, the Spartans fell into the third place contest after losing to Sparta in the final game Friday night at S-V.

The Bulldogs (9-4) drilled home 23-of-45 shots from the field (51 percent) including half of their 3-point attempts.

Josh Dolmage hit a pair of 3-pointers for Sparta leading three Bulldogs in double-figures.

Lee Peck and Travis Thurau added 15 and 10.

Waltonville (9-2) trailed for most of the contest as a result of an 18-of-65 effort from the field.

Derek Tepovich (13) and Josh Ralls (11) topped the Spartans’ scoring list.

Coach Mike Denault’s Spartans rallied to within 42-38 on a basket by John Paul Kubiak late in the third quarter.

However Sparta Tyler Thompson responded with a 3-pointer and a steal by Thurau turned into a fast break score right before the third quarter buzzer ballooned the Sparta lead to 47-38 heading to the final eight minutes.

Kubiak scored on another backdoor bucket with 6:46 to play.

But six consecutive Sparta point – four points from Peck and a pair of free throws by Caleb Barnett – put the Bulldogs in the drivers seat at 53-42 with just 2:23 to go.

Waltonville had seven offensive rebounds in the game as they outrebounded the Bulldogs 33-32.

However those second chances turned to third, fourth and even fifth opportunities that didn’t produce results.

Coach Donovan McMillian’s team finished off the game with a 5-0 run to advance to the title game with Vienna.

“We had to zone them tonight because our bench is a bit short this week,” said McMillian. “We had some holes in the zone from the outside but fortunately they didn’t make many outside shots. We hit the big shots tonight and our boys stepped up.”

SESSER-VALIER 64, GALATIA 48
Coach Danny Kirk moved his Red Devils (5-5) into the fifth place bracket finale on Saturday behind 21 points from Todd Carpenter and 11 points each from Ty Vandekerkhove and Kyle Crocker.

Ethan Robinson led all scorers with 22 points for the Bearcats as the GEC club saw its record slip to 8-4.

CHRISTOPHER 64, WOODLAWN 48
Nick Minor paced the Bearcats with 23 points as Coach Gary Gischer’s team heads into the consolation championship game with a win over the Cardinals.

Josh Overturf scored 13 while Justin Palmer and Zach Thomas scored 12 and 11.

Woodlawn (5-5) got 12 points from Ethan Shurtz and 11 from Kyle Boldt.

CARTERVILLE 62, GOREVILLE 48
Three of the teams that lost at Sesser-Valier on Friday scored 48 points.

The Blackcats – who entered the tournament undefeated – went home with back-to-back losses and a 9-2 mark.

Carterville advanced to the fifth place final against the hosts using 20 points from Tony Brown and 16 points from Tyler Thomas.

Coach Scott Burzynski saw his team improve to 4-7.

Tyler Sopczak with 18 and Kenton Parmley with 15 led Coach Todd Tripp’s Goreville club.

JOHNSTON CITY 61, NEW ATHENS 51
The Indians overcame a 15-point deficit to rally for the win.

Coach Mike Stallings has his team in the consolation championship game on Saturday against Christopher.