The higher seeds prevailed on night one of the St. Elmo Holiday Tournament Tuesday as top-seeded St. Elmo-Brownstown and 4th seeded Cowden-Herrick/Beecher City both picked up wins. In the tournament’s opening game, SEB outscored Clay City 35-3 in the second quarter to break the game wide open and carry that lead to a 91-19 win. Landon Feezel finished with 23 points, Lewis Brown scored 13 points and both Isaac Maxey and Klayton Kroll added 10 points. For Clay City, Noah Wilkin had 7 points.
In Tuesday night’s second game, CHBC took an 18-14 lead after the first but Mulberry Grove would go on a run late in the second quarter to take a 35-32 lead at the half. After being down 48-40, CHBC went on a 10-0 run themselves to pull ahead by two but Mulberry Grove would end the 3rd holding the lead 54-52. A big fourth quarter by CHBC’s Aaron Nohren would help the Bobcats take a lead and Mulberry Grove would not be able to convert on a late 3-point attempt as CHBC held on for the 67-64 win. Nohren led CHBC with 29 points, Konner Blackerby added 16 points and Cody Grove finished with 11 points. For Mulberry Grove, Courtlyn Latham had 23 points, Zane Belcher scored 15 points and Joey Linnabary and Chandler Hans each added 10 points.
SEB and CHBC will now face off in the first semifinal game of the tournament on Thursday night at 7:45pm. Clay City and Mulberry Grove move into the consolation bracket and will play at 6:15pm Thursday night.
Tonight’s at the SEHT, the first game at 6:15pm will be second seeded Cumberland taking on #7 seed Ramsey. Following that game, #3 seed Vandalia will face sixth seeded South Central at 7:45pm.