East St. Louis, Gibault post thrilling victories in IHSA super-sectional round Monday

The boys basketball teams from Gibault and East St. Louis played in super-sectional games Monday night.

And both came away with pulse-pounding victories.

Here is a quick recap of the outcomes.

Springfield Super-Sectional, Class 3A

East St. Louis 59, Sacred Heart-Griffin 56 (2 OT)

The Flyers outlasted Sacred Heart-Griffin 59-56 in double overtime to punch their ticket to state.

East St. Louis improved to 25-8, while the Cyclones — the defending Class 3A champions — finished at 31-4.

“We are definitely-definitely excited,” said East St. Louis coach Mark Chambers, whose team avenged a 60-50 loss to Sacred Heart-Griffin in the 2021-22 super-sectional round. “This group has worked really hard and been through a lot of adversity this year. With the adversity, it’s made us tougher, made us stronger and made us a better team. I’ve had to play 13-14 guys this year and tonight I played 11 and all of them performed well and we’re just thankful we had the opportunity to win that game.”

Kansas State recruit Macaleab Rich led the Flyers with 24 points, while D’Necco Rucker scored 11 points and Antwan Robinson added 10 points.

The Flyers trailed by 40-35 in the fourth quarter before rallying to force overtime tied at 45-45. The two teams remained deadlocked at 51-51 after the first extra session before East St. Louis prevailed in double OT.

Chambers credited his team’s defense for the outcome.

“To get into overtime, it was all about our defense,” he said. “We wanted to pressure them. I went to a couple lineups there that put the pressure on them and it worked out and really turned the game around. We know to win a championship, we have to be great defensive team and we really did that tonight. That’s what got us this win.

“We felt like if we kept it close, we could pull it out at the end. It took a couple overtimes, but we were able to do it.”

East St. Louis now will face Metamora (32-2) at 11:45 a.m. Friday in the state semifinals at State Farm Center on the campus of the University of Illinois. Chambers knows his team faces a tough challenge but stressed they are ready for it.

“We watched some film on them. It’s going to be a tough match-up,” he said “But I think we’re ready for it. We’ll just get back to drawing board, watch some film and prepare for them and have a couple good practices the rest of this week and go into Friday and be ready to go. They have some really good talent. They run their system well. It’ll be a different type of challenge. But we’ll be ready for them.”

Jacksonville Super-Sectional, Class 1A

Gibault 45, Illini Bluffs 44

The Hawks trailed 37-29 early in the fourth quarter and 44-42 with 20 seconds before Kameron Hanvey’s 3-pointer at the buzzer set off a wild celebration and sent the team to state.

Gibault improved to 30-7, while Illini Bluffs finished at 32-5.

“It wasn’t the way we drew it up,” Hawks coach Dennis Rueter said Tuesday morning on a conference call in reference to Hanvey’s game-winner. “We tried to run something that we hadn’t run before which is hard to do. But he had a pretty good look at a 3 and he knocked it in.”

Hanvey finished with 12 points, while Kanen Augustine posted 10 points for the Hawks.

“It’s really neat for the kids,” said Rueter, in his 43rd year as the Hawks coach. “You just have to keep things in perspective. They had a great experience. They had a great thing happen to them. But it doesn’t change what happened.”

All in all, Rueter said during the conference call the team has exceeded his expectations this season. The Hawks now will face Cornerstone Christian (32-5) at 10 a.m. Thursday in the state semifinals at State Farm Center on the campus of the University of Illinois.

“Coming into the season, we expected to be pretty good, but we far exceeded what I thought we could do,” he said. “With the schedule we play, we shouldn’t be afraid of any team we play in a Class 1A state tournament. We play 2A and 3A and 4A teams all year long.”

This will be Gibault’s first state tournament appearance since the 1998-99 campaign when the IHSA had just two classes. The Hawks reached the Class A state championship game and led Rock Falls 43-32 with 3:06 remaining only to see the Rockets finish on a 13-0 run — including a 3-pointer in the final moments — to lose 45-43.

“There were only two classes, so the talent level was quite a bit higher ... we’ll see,” Rueter said. “That year, we played really well in the state tournament until the last 4 minutes of the championship game. I’m still getting a lot of texts from players of the 1999 team saying we still owe them one there.”

This story was originally published March 6, 2023 at 9:56 PM.