Gibault rolls in IHSA Class 1A state boys basketball semifinals. Will play for title

Gibault’s boys basketball team started fast and never looked back en route to a decisive 70-46 win against Cornerstone Christian in the semifinals of the IHSA Class 1A state tournament Thursday morning at State Farm Center in Champaign on the campus of the University of Illinois.

The Hawks forced several early turnovers, capitalized on those to build a lead and ultimately cruised to the victory.

Gibault (31-7) advances to the state championship and will play Scales Mound (32-5) at 11 a.m. Saturday. The Hornets defeated Tuscola (27-7) 40-27 in Thursday’s other semifinal game.

“We pretty much controlled the game right from the start,” Gibault coach Dennis Rueter said. “We turned them over a few times early and got some layups out of it — three easy layups — and that kind of set the tone. We were ahead the whole game and they were playing from behind.”

Gibault led 17-8 after one quarter and 29-19 at halftime. The Hawks expanded the lead to 52-31 after three quarters before settling on the 24-point outcome.

All-state second team selection Kaden Augustine led Gibault with 20 points, while Monday’s super-sectional hero Kameron Hanvey posted 16 points and Gavin Kesler added 14 points. Besides his scoring output, Rueter cited Hanvey’s defense and the team’s as a whole, specifically in the second half.

“I thought Kameron Hanvey was really disruptive up front with their point guard,” said Rueter, in his 43rd season coaching the Hawks. “Our first half wasn’t great defensively, but after that we did a pretty good job defensively. We made them shoot difficult shots. This is in a different setting than what you’re used to and it’s hard for high school kids to shoot it well in this kind of setting.”

The Hawks were coming off a scintillating 45-44 win against Illini Bluffs in Monday night’s Jacksonville Super-Sectional where Hanvey drained a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Rueter had some initial concern about the team regrouping quickly from that high, but credited his seniors for handling matters.

“By the end of practice Tuesday, I thought we were doing a pretty good job of that,” he said. “We told them they can relish all that later, but right now let’s move on and go from there. I thought our seniors took charge of that and made sure that was key.”

And Gibault now is just win away from the ultimate prize.

“We’re watching them right now,” said Rueter, whose 1998-99 team lost in the final seconds of the Class A title game. “Both teams are probably better than the team we played this morning, but they’re teams we can beat. They’re 1A teams. There’s nobody like the team we played Monday that had players who were 6-9, 6-4. There’s four nice 1A teams, but no great 1A team as far as I can see.”

This story was originally published March 9, 2023 at 1:36 PM.