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Updated: December 31, 2024 @ 6:27 am
St. Joseph-Ogden’s Coy Taylor, left, drives to the basket against Pecatonica in Monday evening’s State Farm Holiday Classic small school boys’ championship game at Shirk Center in Normal. The Spartans lost 67-54 to the Tigers.
St. Joseph-Ogden’s Coy Taylor, left, drives to the basket against Pecatonica in Monday evening’s State Farm Holiday Classic small school boys’ championship game at Shirk Center in Normal. The Spartans lost 67-54 to the Tigers.
NORMAL — Positive takeaways from St. Joseph-Ogden’s boys’ basketball team’s time at the State Farm Holiday Classic were easy to find.
Even in the moments after the Spartans’ third straight appearance in its small school boys’ bracket championship ended with a 67-54 loss to Pecatonica at Shirk Center.
“I thought the first half really hurt us,” SJ-O coach Kiel Duval said. “I felt like they were the aggressor in the first half while we were kind of on our heels. We turned the ball over a lot, and I felt like they were the ones getting the loose balls, which is usually us.”
It marked the fourth consecutive time the Spartans closed their run in the SFHC on the tournament’s final day, a stretch that included a championship in 2023.
“We’re a pretty good team because bad teams don’t go 3-1 in this type of tournament,” SJ-O senior Tanner Siems said. “We’re in the toughest part of our schedule playing some pretty tough teams after this, so we’ve got to get back to practice and suit up.”
A slow start plagued the Spartans (8-4) in Monday’s setback, which began with a 17-9 scoring edge for Pecatonica in the opening frame.
Pecatonica’s offense — led by Cooper Hoffman, who recorded the top play on SportsCenter’s top ten list in the Indians’ final game of the 2023 SFHC — remained hot en route to a 33-20 halftime lead.
“He’s really good,” Duval said. “He’s a first-team all-stater and they’ve got length … they’ve got guys on the outside that can shoot it. When you have a guy that can break you down and get inside the paint and guys on the outside that can shoot it, it makes you pretty tough.”
Siems cited the Spartans’ increased aggression with helping them end the third quarter with a 23-21 scoring edge, which carried into the fourth quarter when the Spartans trimmed their deficit to six points in its early stages.
But the Spartans never got over the hump en route to their fourth loss of the season, which snapped a winning streak of four games dating to a 45-44 overtime loss against Normal U-High — which lost the SFHC third-place game to El Paso-Gridley on Monday morning — on Dec. 20.
“We started to attack and get to the rim,” SJ-O junior Ryker Lockhart said. “But the hole we dug ourselves in the first half was too big to overcome.”
Coy Taylor paced the Spartans with 18 points, while Parker Fitch added 11 points and Collin Thomey added eight points to help the Spartans’ offense.
Tanner Siems added six points and was named to the all-tournament team after scoring 55 points during the four-game tournament. His 19-point effort led the Spartans to a 52-49 win over El Paso-Gridley in their semifinal game on Dec. 28.
“It’s a good personal goal of mine to have, to be on the all-tournament team,” Siems said. “It doesn’t really mean much. … I don’t really care about personal goals. I want the team to win.”
Siems and Taylor were at the top of Pecatonica’s scouting report.
“The scout on them was pretty much to shut down (Taylor),” Joshua Jennings said after scoring seven points for the Indians. “He was really good, really tough player, crashed everything. Made all of us tired on defense.”
Strong efforts from Will Haley and Asher Pruemer filled out the Spartans’ stat sheet, with Pruemer chipping in a key three-pointer shortly after entering the game in the opening half and Haley turning in a stout defensive effort.
Tim Blackburn-Kelly and Lane McKinney were SJ-O’s other scorers with six points and two points, respectively.
“We know what we’re going to get out of Asher,” Duval said. “He’s always locked in. The last two games he hasn’t played, but when he went in today he was ready to play and that’s all you can say about a bench guy. That’s what we need.”
Williamsville, Warrensburg-Latham and Teutopolis await the Spartans early in the new year before Illini Prairie Conference play begins in earnest with a road trip to Pontiac on Jan. 17, 2025.
“This is probably the toughest part of our schedule,” Duval said. “So we’re going to have to buckle up and see what we’ve got. We’ll see what we’re made of here pretty quick.”
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