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“Nothing matters but the weekend”, “Everybody’s working for the weekend” and “Thank God it’s Friday”. There have been many songs and expressions for our love of those three days we refer to as a weekend. We make plans and set aside time and resources to do those things we love to do before we have to return to the weekly grind and routine of our weekly lives. Sometimes our weekends are especially fun and eventful and surpass our expectations. For the student athletes and their parents of St James Catholic School in Millstadt it was a GREAT weekend.
On Saturday the St James Lady Trojans 8th Grade girls basketball team was playing the St Clare Lady Knights for the championship of the Holy Childhood 8th Grade Girls Basketball Tournament in Mascoutah. Later that same day the St James Trojans 8th Grade boy’s volleyball team was playing the Holy Childhood Apaches for the championship of the St James 8th Grade Boys Volleyball Tournament in Millstadt. Both teams came away with tournament titles.
Lady Trojans Dominate Holy Childhood Tournament
The St James Lady Trojans 8th Grade girl’s basketball team has been on a roll and have proven themselves to be the team to beat locally in the Diocese. After defeating the Lady Titans of Holy Trinity in Fairview Heights in the first round and the host Lady Apaches of Holy Childhood in Mascoutah in the semi-finals, the Lady Trojans added another trophy to their collection this season as they defeated the St Clare Lady Knights of O’Fallon in convincing fashion to win the title game 41-26. St James Lady Trojans 8th Grade coach Kevin Colbert said, “It’s not always been easy but we’ve been playing really well of late, since the start of the Althoff Feeder Tournament. We’ve been playing harder and with more intensity. When we do that we’re pretty good.”
The Lady Trojans came out of the gate firing as they began the game with an 8-0 run and kept the Lady Knights scoreless until the four-minute mark of the first quarter. The Lady Trojans were sparked early by the play of center Tory Lanaghan who stole a pass and drove to the other end of the court before dishing to a teammate for an easy lay-up. Although not scoring a lot of points for the Lady Trojans, Lanaghan had a good tournament overall contributing on offense and defense. Lanaghan was a force inside blocking shots and coming down with a number of rebounds for the Lady Trojans. Coach Colbert said, “Tory played very well today and in the semi-final as well. I though she played well in the feeder tournament as well. When Tory is playing well, we are a pretty formidable team.” Lady Trojans guard Alexa Wilson also came up big in the first quarter scoring 10 of her 12 points on some excellent outside shooting. Coach Colbert said of Alexa, “She has played extremely well as of late, more than her offense is the way she has played defensively in the last couple of weeks. She has really turned it up a notch and become a top notch defender.” The Lady Trojans took an early 19-6 lead after the first quarter and after that it was all Lady Trojans.
St James continued their dominance on the court into the second quarter. Stretching their lead to 23-8 in the second quarter Coach Colbert began to work his bench players into the game. Although they were leading by a considerable margin and his substitutes were on the floor, Coach Colbert was nonetheless still demanding of his team. Calling a timeout midway through the second quarter Coach Colbert was emphatic with his team regarding their play on defense. It must have done some good because the Lady Trojans limited the Lady Knights to just four points in the second quarter. After some excellent outside shooting by the Lady Trojans in the first quarter the Lady Knights focused on guarding the outside shot. That’s when Lady Trojans’ forward Mackenzie Weilbacher went to work. The Lady Trojans fed the ball inside to Weilbacher and the Lady Knights had no answer. Weilbacher led all scorers in the game with 15 points and had one of her best games of the year. The Lady Trojans were in control leading 27-10.
In the third quarter Coach Colbert continued to go to his bench mixing his starters with his bench in order to maintain their lead and give his bench players some much needed experience. Coach Colbert said, “Everybody got a lot of chances and a lot of playing time this week and hopefully that will continue. When we’re playing well everybody gets to play a lot and that’s just a good situation for everybody. Our bench is fairly deep and we can bring some pretty good players off of our bench, so we don’t suffer much in doing so.” The St Clare Lady Knights came out inspired in the second half and were shooting the ball more than they had in the first half and some of the shots were falling. Coach Colbert mixed up his defense using man-to-man, 2-1-2 zone and a 1-2-2 zone. Coach Colbert said, “We feel like going into this last part of the season and the diocesan tournament that we’re going to have to do some different things against some different teams. So we just used this an opportunity to work on that today.” While the Lady Knights managed to score 8 points in the quarter the Lady Trojans matched that to maintain their lead at 35-18 after the third quarter.
Having trouble with an inside game the Lady Knights continued to throw up outside shots in the fourth quarter. Coach Colbert changed defense again going to a 3-2 zone after again admonishing his team to cover the outside shot. The Lady Trojans responded to their coach’s pleas and the result forced St Clare to take some bad shots as their other shots were well guarded. The Lady Knights were also getting a lot of second and third chances off of shots in the fourth quarter. The Lady Trojans were getting good position and boxing out under the basket but many of the Lady Knights shots were careening off the rim and backboard only to go back outside to St Clare shooters. Although the Lady Knights outscored the Lady Trojans 8-6 in the fourth quarter it was largely against St James’ bench players and St Clare still came up short losing the game and settling for second place 41-26.
St James Trojans Earn Victory, Title Against Strong Opposition
The St James Trojans boy’s volleyball team has had a good season thus far under the tutelage of Coach Brian Matecki. With the Trojans at 7-2 thus far, the Holy Childhood Apaches have been the single thorn in their side having handed the Trojans their only two losses of the season. As a result, an intense rivalry has developed rather quickly between the two teams. But the Trojans may have removed that thorn permanently with their two game match win over the Apaches in the title game of the St James 8th Grade Boys Volleyball Tournament. The Trojans defeated the Apaches 21-19 and 21-16 to win the match and the title.
The intensity of the match was apparent from the beginning as the Trojans sought to end the Apaches dominance over them this season. Likewise the Apaches were intent on continuing their win streak over the Trojans and would have loved to do so winning the title at the Trojans own tournament. The games were close as each team made play after play. As play progressed it became apparent that it would be the strong net play of the Apaches against the excellent backcourt play of the Trojans with the question being “Could the Trojans play well enough at the net to win?” The Trojans answered with a resounding YES.
The Apaches got their share of points at the net via their group of hard hitters and the results were at times devastating and certainly intimidating. But the Trojans kept their composure and began to measure the Apache hitters getting to more and more of their spikes with some impressive digs, movement and communication. The Trojans countered with great ball placement, keeping Apache blockers and defenders confused as to where the Trojans would go with the ball next. Would they spike or dink? Would they go frontcourt or back court? And the Trojans play was working more and more as the games progressed. Coach Matecki said, “We blocked very well today and did a good job of digging, especially the dinks. Our goal was to set it deep and to make them hit it at least two or three times and hopefully in the midst of doing so keep them from setting their big hitters and have to bump or dink it over.”
While play was closely contested from beginning to end in game one as the Trojans eventually won 21-19, game two seemed to change a bit as the Trojans’ poise and composure became more and more evident. In contrast, the Apaches seemed to be somewhat frustrated in their ability to play their usual strong game at the net. The Trojans were keeping the ball in the Apaches backcourt for most of the second game and it was paying off. The Apaches were having difficulty handling the Trojans volleys and their sets to their big hitters were off the mark negating their power at the net. The Trojans took advantage and were able to do something that neither team had been able to do in the first game and that was to string some serves together. The Trojans were able to translate that into a 17-12 lead and later a 19-13 lead on their way to the 21-16 win and the St James 8th Grade Boys Volleyball Tournament championship.
The Trojans didn’t really seem to have any standout players, as everyone seemed to contribute in some way or fashion. Something that will help the Trojans as they face the back stretch of their season on their way to the Diocesan Tournament in four weeks. Coach Matecki said, “All of our kids are pretty much the same. They all can bump, set and spike. We’ve got a good nucleus of kids who can do it all. We get a very balanced effort.”
Kole Rakers, St James’ Standout Champion
While many student athletes shared in the girls’ basketball tournament win and the boys’ volleyball tournament, one St James student athlete had an even better Saturday than the rest. 8th grader Kole Rakers had an extra special day as he earned a first place on trumpet at the St Clair County Music Festival and a first place at the St Clair County Science Competition. Congratulations Kole!
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