Kahoks pick up SWC basketball win over East
By Mark Jurgena
It took two seconds to get the Collinsville offense going.
That offense kept on going as they secured their initial Southwestern Conference win of the season on Jan. 30 at Fletcher Gym.
CHS knocked off Belleville East 56-36.
The victory moved Collinsville to 9-14 overall and 1-7 in the SWC on the season. East had identical records after the contest.
East had beaten the Kahoks by seven in December in St. Clair County.
“We have been trending in the right direction,” said CHS coach Hank Matthews. “We’ve been playing a really tough schedule the past couple of weeks. We played really well for three quarters against West, but we finally put together what I feel like, almost, is a complete game.
“We had a great practice the day before, two days before, so back-to-back days of great practices and like I told them, they had earned the opportunity to compete the right way and they earned the right to win because of the way they practiced, and, boy, was that true.”
The level of effort by the Kahoks in practice carried over to the Kahoks’ first bucket right after the opening tip.
Kahok Jordan Taylor tapped the ball toward the CHS basket and JuPaul Hudson sprinted to control it. He dropped in the opening layup a scant two seconds later to put the Kahoks up early.
The Kahoks kept up the offense, ending the quarter on a 12-0 run to take a 17-5 lead after one quarter of play.
While Hudson began the game with a highlight reel play, he also added another with 42 seconds to go in the opening quarter.
Jace Wilkinson deflected the ball with Hudson securing the steal. He raced to the other end for a thunderous dunk to put CHS up 14-5.
“I was so proud of him,” Matthews said. “We sat him for a game. He wasn’t meeting the standard of our program, and he came out, and all week, he was a great teammate. He had great practices, so I was not surprised that he came out and played the way he did. We’ve been saying it all year that he’s our X factor. When we can get him playing at that level with how hard he played and how focused he was, it makes us a tremendous basketball team.”
Hudson had six points in the quarter, as did Wilkinson. DeAndre Brown added four, while Taylor added a free throw.
Wilkinson added a free throw to start the second quarter before Belleville East went on a 12-2 run to cut the lead to six.
The Kahoks went into the locker room with that same margin, leading 26-20.
East cut the lead down to 28-24 with 6:17 to go in the third, but Collinsville finished out the quarter on a 9-3 run to lead 37-25.
In the final eight minutes, the Kahoks shot the lights out, going 7-for-9 from the floor before the starters came out. Eli Ramey had six points for the quarter while Brown had five.
“If you go back two weeks ago, we were up 12 on West going in the fourth quarter,” began Matthews. “And we did not finish that game well. So, we watched film, we talked about it, and we went out and we were focused on getting the ball where we needed to get it in the fourth quarter, and we did that.
“We were very aware of the situation, and I think it was just a focus thing. I think it helped that we had some days to prepare and talk about, try and fix it but we did that. Our guys, they’re coachable.”
Statistically, for Collinsville, Brown had 14 points to lead the Kahoks.
Taylor had 12 points, seven rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots.
Wilkinson had 10 points.
Kaleb Garcia had nine rebounds while Hudson had seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.
“I’m just really proud of the whole group,” Matthews said. “I thought from our starters to our bench, we all provided something to help us win the game. Hopefully, we can see the same thing, going into a big week for us here.
CHS Schedule
The Kahoks were at Ladue, Mo. (MICDS) on Feb. 3, however, results were unavailable at press time. On Feb. 6, they are at home against O’Fallon, then play at Edwardsville on Feb 10.
