03/12/2025
BY JACK BULLOCK
CARBONDALE – There have been some impressive individual performances over the years in southern Illinois high school boy's basketball and there will certainly be more in the future.

However the four-year stretch of exceptional play by Webber Township senior guard Nathaniel Marlow may never be topped again.

When you look back on his accomplishments, it is eye-opening.

Even folks who are just casual fans of the sport have taken notice of his extraordinary skill at putting up gargantuan scoring numbers.

Marlow scored a career total of 3,272-points in his 135-games.

This is a phenomenal effort from a kid from a small school program.

Teams tried everything to keep him out of he scorebook.

Box-and-one's, triangle-and-two's, etc.

He still put up the numbers.

Marlow's career average of 24.2-points a game is impressive but the his senior year was monumental.

He totaled 1,057-points in 2025-26, that's 32.03 per game.

He finished second all-time in the history of the IHSA in scoring, trailing just Charles "Chico" Vaughn who finished his prep career at 3,358.

Certainly there were some easy games on the Webber Township schedule in his four seasons but he scored a bunch of points against good teams as well.

His final prep game this season, the Trojans lost to Altamont 68-58 and Marlow put in 41-points.

In his four seasons, Webber Township won three regional championships.

While in uniform, Marlow was part of a pair of regular season Midland Trail Conference championship teams, one MTC Tournament title team, two Wayne City Holiday Tournament championship squads and he has too many to count all-tournament team selections.

He was first team AP 1A All-State last season and is a lock for that award again when the votes come in.

Marlow can add a third-consecutive ABV 1A “Player of the Year” award to the mantle.

(CONTINUED)

In 2A there was another player running up and down the court for the past four seasons for Nashville and he broke a record not many thought would be approached in the Hornets' program history.

Six-three senior Maddox Ritzel passed former Illinois Class A All-State, and Division I player at Northern Iowa, Lucas O'Rear for the program's all-time scoring lead.

Ritzel ended up with 2,186-points and he passed O'Rear back in February in a game, ironically, against Webber Township.

The senior guard/forward scored 45-points compared to 46-points for Marlow in the 79-77 Hornets' win.

Ritzel hit the game-winner at the buzzer for the Hornets.

He had some other huge games as a senior, including a 33-point outburst in a 66-33 win over Breese Central to win the Nashville Invitational Tournament championship back in January.

Ritzel was part of a state ranked Hornets' team that won a regional title with a win over Pinckneyville where he scored 25-points in the 60-44 victory.

Maddox scored 805-points this season, 23.6 points per game, for the 31-3 Hornets.

As some may be aware, the ABV “Coach of the Year” awards are a bit more selective in that the unofficial/official rule is that a coach can't win it twice.

It was implemented about 10 seasons ago because you could make a case for the same handful of coaches winning it each season.

There are many mentors deserving each season.

For the 2025-26 season, Hardin County head coach Rodney Lane gets the nod as the 1A winner.

Coach Lane led his upstart Cougars to a regional championship this season, something that doesn't happened too often for Greater Egyptian Conference schools as a whole.

Hardin County won both the GEC regular season and conference tournament titles this past year and after a 1-5 start, finished 26-8.

They also played a couple of ranked 1A teams close this season and one of them is set to play in the state semifinals.

Coach Lane and his team made the most of their opportunities this season and the award is justly deserved.

The 2A “Coach of the Year” comes from the Metro-East.

Roxana long-time mentor Mark Briggs gets the nod this season as his Shells surprised many in not only posting a winning mark (24-10) against a pretty brutal schedule, but they won a regional championship before dropping a 12-point decision to Quincy Notre Dame in the sectional semifinals.

The Raiders are also suiting up Thursday in the state semifinals of 2A.

The Shells shared a Cahokia Conference championship this season and picked up a bunch of good victories along the way, winning their own regional after beating rival Alton Marquette for the third time during the season.

EDITOR'S NOTE: One could make a case for every player on the first team's to be the POY's in both 1A and 2A. However, as always, I stand by the choices. Also there are probably some quality players not in my ABV All-South lists.

C'est la vie!

Next winter will be my 28th season covering boy's high school basketball. Thank you all for frequenting my website and reading my articles for the past 27.
Jack