Mulberry Grove Gets First Win Over SEB in Several Years As Two Teams Wrap Up Pool Play

Mulberry Grove used a strong first quarter offensive effort to grab a lead over St. Elmo-Brownstown and held off the Eagles late run as the Aces got a 66-61 win to wrap up pool play at their own Mulberry Grove Thanksgiving Tournament. It was the first win for the Aces over the Eagles since 2019 when the two teams battled in Championship games of each team’s tournaments, as Mulberry Grove beat SEB in both, but the Eagles beat the Aces in regular season conference play that year. In Friday’s game, the Aces ran out to a 14-3 first quarter lead and extended it to 30-15 at halftime behind a 15-point effort from Jackson Icenogle in the first half. That double digit lead would hold in the third quarter as Conner Hartmann heated up seven points in the quarter for the Aces to counteract a pair of big threes from SEB’s Graidon Wilhour in the period as Mulberry Grove lead 45-31 at the end of period. Lowell Wilhour with 17 points and Graidon Wilhour with nine points took the game over in the fourth quarter for a 30-21 Eagles run, but with the game close, SEB would have to put Mulberry Grove at the free throw line and a 10 for 13 effort would held the Aces close out the 66-61 win. Mulberry Grove moves to 2-1 on the season while SEB drops to 2-1. The Aces win created a three-way tie between them, SEB and Maryville Christian to wrap up pool play and the tiebreakers would have to be used to assign teams to Saturday’s place games. Maryville Christian won the tiebreaker to get the Championship game berth and after the tiebreaker was down to two teams again, it went back to head to head giving the Aces the advantage to send them to the Third Place Game at 4:30 against South Central while SEB will go to the Fifth Place Game at 3:00pm against Lebanon.

Mulberry Grove Scoring:

Jackson Icenogle – 21 points

Conner Hartmann – 17 points

Landon Sugg – 14 points
Hagan Henrichsmeyer – 10 points

Aiden Walker – 3 points

Logan Bauer – 1 point

SEB Scoring:

Lowell Wilhour – 20 points

Graidon Wilhour – 20 points

Jayden Hughett – 6 points

Trenten Monnet – 4 points

Vadim Plum – 4 points