03/07/2022
BY JACK BULLOCK
CARBONDALE - When it comes to teams preparing a schedule to get a team ready for a run to the state finals, head coach Shannon Houser might have went a bit overboard this winter.

For a club that had a pretty tough schedule to begin with, the Macon Meridian Hawks added some heavy hitters during the 2021-22.

As it turned out there were good times and not so good times as they began the obstacle course in late November.

But here they are, in the Elite Eight.

When you examine the schedule of the teams they have battled against, it has been a gauntlet of quality foes.

The Hawks, who play in the Central Illinois Conference, played one team in particular three times; including Friday night's championship game of the Effingham St. Anthony 1A Sectional.

Tuscola and Macon Meridian had split a pair of games during the regular season.

The Hawks bested the Warriors at Tuscola in a regular season clash, 81-73 in double-overtime back on February 11.

They were scheduled to play the title game over the CIC Tournament but it was weathered out on February 4.

So that title game, which was played at Meridian as the Hawks were the hosts, was moved back to February 16.

The Warriors edged Meridian, 49-47 to win the league tourney title.

The rubber game of the trilogy turned out to be a classic battle that was decided on a 65-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer by Meridian's Graham Meisenhelter, 82-79 to improve the Hawks to 28-7.

There were other teams that the Hawks played and beat that all had impressive seasons.

Coach Houser's squad won the New Berlin Turkey Tournament back in November with two wins in particular being of quality.

The Hawks beat Concord Triopia (76-51) and Jacksonville Routt (66-58) to claim the championship.

Routt (28-6) defeated Triopia (27-6) 51-38 to win the 1A Pawnee regional titles 10 days ago before losing to Liberty in the sectional title game at White Hall-North Greene.

Meridian split two games with Decatur St. Teresa (20-8) and won games against Nokomis, Okaw Valley, and 2A Warrensburg-Latham (2).

All of those teams won 20-plus games this season.

Two other wins were against 2A teams Monticello (30-3) and Bloomington Central Catholic (19-15) by scores of 67-56 and 92-77.

Monticello and Bloomington Central Catholic are set to play at the 2A Springfield Super-Sectional on Monday night.

Monticello has been ranked in the Top 10 in 2A for most of the season (6th in the final poll) and the Sages took down #4 El Paso-Gridley Friday night in the 2A Clifton Central Sectional final.

Add Edwardsville Metro-East Lutheran to the list of the defeated by Macon Meridian as the Hawks topped the Knights, 63-58 at the Mount Vernon Shootout on December 4.

MEL also won a regional 10 days ago (at Hardin Calhoun).

Their sectional semifinal, a game that they won 60-57 over South Central (26-8), was another win against a regional champ.

The defeats suffered by Meridian were against good teams but some were kind of ugly losses.

Cerro Gordo/Bement (27-7) topped the Hawks 67-66 in overtime and Pana beat Meridian twice; once in the final of the Vandalia Holiday Tournament (71-46) and again at Pana (59-57) in overtime.

Both 1A Cerro Gordo/Bement and 2A Pana won regionals this postseason.

In the annual CIC/NTC Shootout on February 12, Altamont shut down the wore out Hawks in the second half of a 58-39 win for the Indians.

Although the Hawks had played the double-overtime thriller at Tuscola the night before, ABV didn't cut them any slack with that excuse in the 'who's hot, who's night' rankings at the end of the season.

However, as mentioned in a previous article, the ABV Preseason 1A Top 10 had the Hawks and Warriors at 1-2.

Coach Houser's Hawks haven't lost since the shootout defeat, winning their final regular season game against Clinton and five-straight in the postseason.

Macon Meridian has reached its first super-sectional since 2008-09.

That team, led by head coach Jack Blickensderfer, won the 1A state championship with a 63-53 triumph over Woodlawn.

Added up the Hawks played teams this season that were a combined 655-432 (59.9 winning percentage) with 16 of them having 20-plus wins.

Meridian has relied on senior twins Graham (6-0) and Grant Meisenhelter (5-11) this season with Graham missing the first 10-games of the season due to a severe football injury.

His teammates picked up the slack in his absence.

Six-one senior Mekhi Phillips, a transfer last summer from Decatur MacArthur, has helped the cause in 2021-22 with another defender and scoring option.

Six-foot senior guard Riley Day and 6-5 senior center Andrew Hurelbrink are part of the starting lineup while Brett Brown, a 6-4 junior, 6-1 senior Michael Ripple and 6-6 center Roy Ralston are the ones off of the bench.