Decatur LSA defeats Mount Pulaski 63-58 to win the Bill Rucks Tournament

[November 27, 2017]  Decatur LSA and Mount Pulaski faced off Saturday night in the championship game of the Bill Rucks Tournament with the home team coming up a little short for the first place trophy.

The Lions simply shut down Mount Pulaski’s Peyton Taylor in the first half, holding the 6’8 senior to just six points. Kudos to the Lions’ defense for denying the big man the ball in the paint.

Meanwhile Decatur LSA barely missed a basket in the first half and sank five threes with Michael Fiala connecting for three treys alone quickly in the first quarter. The Lions held a 27-20 lead over the Hilltoppers at the half. The Lions built up as much as a 14 point lead in the second half over Mount Pulaski but the Hilltoppers never quit.

With Mount Pulaski trailing 49-35 with five minutes left to play in the game, back to back buckets by Trevor Hayes and Taylor drew the home team closer. A bucket by Drew Martin off the offensive rebound inched the Hilltoppers even more towards a miraculous comeback. Then when Hayes hit a three at the two minute mark, the crowd exploded with the score 55-47.

The Hilltoppers kept chipping away and back to back buckets from Brandon Kretzinger and Taylor cut the lead to 57-51 around a minute to play. Kretzinger’s floater in the lane closed the gap to a five point difference, 58-53 with 47.4 showing on the game clock.

A huge blow to the Hilltoppers would be Taylor fouling out shortly after his last basket that made the score 60-55.

Cam Walls from LSA provided the second huge blow to the Hilltoppers. Walls went to the free throw line and sank 5 of 6 shots from the charity stripe in the final minute of the game.

Seth Huff did hit a huge three with 10.6 seconds remaining and you would have thought there was an explosion in the gym. Even though Decatur LSA was holding on to a 62-58 lead and the ball, the purple and gold crowd was pumped.

The Hilltoppers were out of timeouts at this point though and were forced to foul again. This time Tanner Heick sank one free throw for Decatur LSA and that was pretty much the end of the game. Mount Pulaski simply ran out of time. A comeback just a tad bit too late. Mount Pulaski suffered a 63-58 heartbreaking loss in the championship game but nonetheless finished playing strong.

Taylor finished with 22 points and was named to the All-Tournament Team. Gezus Oliver had 10 points for the Hilltoppers and freshmen Drew Martin chipped in 9 points.

 

Decatur LSA celebrates Saturday night after winning the Mount Pulaski High School Bill Rucks Varsity Boys Basketball Tournament.

Scores by quarter:

Mount Pulaski 11 20 31 58
Decatur LSA 20 27 39 63

Mount Pulaski (58)

Taylor 22
Oliver 10
Drew Martin 9
Trevor Hayes 8
Huff 5
Kretzinger 4

Decatur LSA (63)

Schaal 12
Walls 11
Fiala 11
Whitehead 11
Guske 9
Heick 5
Karsten 2
Todd 2


7th Place

Tri-City 52
Edinburg 36

5th Place

Central A & M 79
Illini Central 55

3rd Place

Porta 66
Calvary 56

All-Tournament Team

Connor Heaton ~ Central A & M
Max May ~ Illini Central
Derrick Roberts ~ Springfield Calvary
Peyton Taylor ~ Mount Pulaski
Ezra Schaal ~ Decatur LSA

[Teena Lowery]