High School Sports

Here’s the preps holiday tournament readers chose as their favorite in southwest IL

By Garen Vartanian

The Belleville News-Democrat shifted gears a bit for this week’s poll.

With a break in games before the holiday tournaments, the BND asked readers to select their favorite holiday tournament.

Options included the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic, the Columbia-Freeburg Holiday Tournament, the Centralia Holiday Basketball Tournament, the Mascoutah Invitational, the Mater Dei Christmas Tournament and the Pinckneyville Duster Thomas Hoops Classic. The poll ended at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

Collinsville’s Cawhan Smith dives for the ball against Mundelein’s Conor Enright during the championship game of the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic Tournament in 2019. In this week’s BND sports poll, readers chose this yearly hoops extravaganza as their favorite holiday tournament.
Collinsville’s Cawhan Smith dives for the ball against Mundelein’s Conor Enright during the championship game of the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic Tournament in 2019. In this week’s BND sports poll, readers chose this yearly hoops extravaganza as their favorite holiday tournament. Jimmy Jay Simmons

In the end, readers selected the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic as their favorite. This was the 37th year of the tournament, which featured a team from Alaska, who went 0-2. Decatur MacArthur ultimately won the tournament, defeating O’Fallon 66-46 in the championship game Wednesday night.

Overall, the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic tallied 69 votes (34%) to finish ahead of the Mater Dei Christmas Tournament, which secured 62 votes (30%). The Columbia-Freeburg Holiday Tournament, meanwhile, received 26 votes (13%).

Here are the other championship game results of the other respective tournaments:

  • Nashville defeated Louisville Doss (Kentucky) 63-60 to win the 60th annual Mater Dei Christmas Tournament.
  • Columbia defeated Marquette 39-25 to win the 50th annual Columbia-Freeburg Holiday Tournament, which initially started in 1957 but has rotated between the two high schools since 1971.
  • Vashon (Missouri) defeated Evanston (Illinois) 61-38 to win the 78th annual Centralia Holiday Tournament.
  • Olney defeated Pinckneyville 48-42 to win the 14th annual Pinckneyville Duster Thomas Hoops Classic.
  • Okawville defeated Alton to win the 43rd annual Mascoutah Invitational.

To be clear, this poll is not scientific. In fact, we invite you to vote as many times as you want. It’s all for fun, BND readers.

The BND will resume the Athlete of the Week poll Jan. 4. Anyone can nominate a varsity boys or girls high school basketball player for next week’s poll by emailing gvartanian@bnd.com. The next poll will appear on the BND’s website — www.bnd.com — at 5 a.m. Tuesday.

Past winners of the Athlete of the Week: Tyler Lunning of O’Fallon High School (Week 1), Dylan Murphy of Columbia High School (Week 2), Brady Moore of Breese Central High School (Week 3).

Did your favorite tournament win? Watch for next week’s Athlete of the Week poll for another chance to vote. Coming soon.
Did your favorite tournament win? Watch for next week’s Athlete of the Week poll for another chance to vote. Coming soon. Provided

This story was originally published January 1, 2022 at 9:00 AM.

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