The East St Louis Flyers won their 5th straight Salem Invitational knocking off top-seed Centralia 45-37 in front of a near capacity crowd. Tournament MVP Davis Bynum finished with 13 points. Taylor Powell added 9 points and 12 rebounds. Centralia got 11 points from freshman Michael Organ who hit 3 big 3 pointers in the 2nd half to get Centralia ahead briefly before the Flyers would end the game on a run.
The Flyers become just the 2nd team ever to 5-peat at the SIT joining the Orphans who did it in the early 60s.
Salem fell in the 3rd place game to Mount Vernon 44-31. Navontae Nesbit finished with 18 and Cale Maurer 12 to lead the Rams. Salem was led by Sam Greene with 11. Miking Ettress added 5.
Carbondale beat Champaign Central in the Consolation Championship 59-50. In the loss, Champaign set a tournament record for made three’s by a team with 29. Included was a record-tying 16 three’s made in their win over Effingham earlier in the day. That matched Centralia’s 16 hit against Effingham on Wednesday night.
Charleston won the All Apollo battle in the 7th place game 55-41.
Joining Bynum on the First Team All-Tournament was teammate’s Robert McCline and Taylor Powell along with Nesbit from Mount Vernon, Harlan of Centralia and DeCarl Payne of Carbondale. On the 2nd team was Salem’s Connor Tennyson and Gavin Zimmermann along with Jerrance Howard of Carbondale, Daryle Jones of Centralia and Cale Maurer of Mount Vernon.
Mount Vernon took home the Cheerleading Title with Centralia 2nd.
