Taylor moves closer to scoring mark, but Collinsville falls to Edwardsville
Collinsville High School basketball legend Tom Parker will own the Kahoks career scoring record for at least three more days.
Senior guard Ray’Sean Taylor scored 18 points Tuesday to move within four points of the 52-year-old mark, but the Kahoks fell to Edwardsville 38-36 in a Southwestern Conference game.
A 6-1 senior guard, Taylor now has 2,037 points. Headed to play college basketball at SIU-Edwardsville, Taylor scored 12 of his 18 points in the final quarter as Collinsville, ranked fifth in the Class 4A state poll, closed the gap.
But Edwardsville (21-7 overall, 5-4 in the SWC), getting four straight free throws from Brennan Weller in the closing 30 seconds, held on for its 10th-straight win. Weller also had 18 points.
The loss drops Collinsville (25-3 overall) into a share of the SWC lead with O’Fallon. Both teams are 7-2 in the league. Taylor will have another chance to break the mark Friday when Collinsville plays at Belleville West.
Averaging 24.3 points per game, Taylor entered the 2019-20 season 11th on the Kahoks scoring list with 1,363 points. He became one of a select list of players in Southwestern Conference history to score 50 or more points in a game when he broke loose for 53 points in Collinsville’s win over St. Louis Trinity Catholic in the title game of the Belleville East Chick-Fil-A Classic on Jan 25.
Three days later, Taylor scored 44 points in a win over Triad.
Parker, who scored his 2,041 points in three years as opposed to four by Taylor, went on to play at the University of Kentucky for legendary coach Adolph Rupp.
Parker was the 1972 Southeastern Conference Player of the Year and was taken by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the sixth round of the 1972 NBA draft.
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 10:55 PM.
