Kahoks win twice at East Tourney
by Mark Jurgena
The Collinsville boys basketball team took two out of three games at the Belleville East Winter Classic last week.
CHS beat St. Louis (Sumner) and Florissant, Mo. (McCluer Senior) to start the tourney before falling to Belleville (Althoff) in their Saturday night finale.
“In the first two games, we were playing teams that we jumped on and put them away by the end of the first half,” began CHS coach Darin Lee. “We did some trapping and made some shots and were able to have running clocks so we were happy with that.”
Sumner win
Collinsville opened the tourney with a bit 73-29 win over Sumner on Jan. 22.
CHS began the tourney a little sluggish gaining an 11-7 lead after one quarter before they opened up the scoring with a big 27-4 outpouring in the second quarter to take a commanding 38-11 lead at the half.
The Kahoks rang up 26 points in the third to go up 64-23 and invoke the 30-point mercy rule for the remainder of the game.
CHS got big scoring nights from three sources. Stanley Carnahan, Donovan Coates and Jace Wilkinson all had 18 points on the evening.
Coates drilled five threes during the contest.
Solomon Talbott had a huge contest on the glass with 16 rebounds while Chase Reynolds had six assists.
McCluer win
Collinsville put up a big 77-33 win over McCluer Senior on Jan. 24.
The Kahoks rang up a big 29-4 lead after eight minutes and led 47-16 at the half.
CHS came out with 26 points in the third to once again invoke the mercy rule.
Coates had 31 points including five threes and went 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
Talbott had 15 points and nine boards.
Carnahan added eight points with 11 rebounds while Reynolds had a game-high seven assists.
Collinsville amassed 14 steals on the night with Carnahan and Reynolds grabbing three each.
Althoff game
The Kahoks finished their tourney with a 66-59 loss to Althoff.
Trailing 36-30 at the half, CHS briefly took the lead in the third and outscored Althoff in the quarter but ACHS led 49-46 after three.
“We played decent they just had some guys who shot it,” began Lee. “They had a guy come off the bench and make three 3-pointers (Jeremiah Conway who finished with 10 points). They went 14-for-26 from the arc. We took away penetration in the lane and dominated the glass they just shot it really well.”
Althoff shot it in at a 52.2 percent clip making 24-of-42 shots including that 53 percent from distance. CHS shot 45.1 percent making 23-of-51 shots from the field and went 7-for-33 from the arc, a 31.8 percent clip.
The Kahoks outrebounded the Crusaders 30-14 in the contest with Carnahan leading the way with nine rebounds.
CHS had two players in double figures with Coates tossing in 21 markers and Wilkinson adding 20 including five threes.
Reynolds dished out six assists and Talbott had three blocked shots.
Althoff was led in scoring by Oregon football commit Dierre Hill, Jr. who scored 17 points including four 3-pointers. They moved to 18-4 after the contest.
Tourney review
Althoff ran through the tourney with a 3-0 mark beating Belleville East, Belleville West and the Kahoks. All three of those Southwestern Conference schools went 2-1 in the tourney. Sumner and McCluer both went 0-3 at the tourney.
Upcoming Schedule
Collinsville played host to Edwardsville (Metro East Lutheran) on Tuesday however results were unavailable at press time.
They play at Belleville West on Friday and host Edwardsville on Tuesday.
