More schedule changes for today at the 74th Salem Invitational Tournament. After moving their consolations semifinals to last night, and trophy games moved to this morning, the school was notified early this morning that Gateway Legacy will not be allowing their team to travel so the 9am Consolation finals with Champaign Central is off. We will have just 2 games today, the 3rd place game between TTown and Mattoon at 10:30 and then the championship at noon between Centralia and Mt Vernon.
Last night in the championship semifinals Centralia improved to 21-1 with another dominant win, this time over Mattoon 69-29. Reigning tournament MVP Archie Goewey scored 24 points in 3 quarters of action. Devin Meier finished with 14 and Kenny Bratton 11. Lincoln Hayes was in double figures for the Wave with 10.
We will get The Game in the championship as Mt Vernon punched their ticket with a hard fought 36-28 win over Teutopolis in a battle of state ranked teams. Cale Maurer was 9-of-10 from the free throw line and scored 18 points to lead the Rams. Eli Prost added 10.
The Salem Wildcats run at the tournament ended with a battle against Champaign Central that they lost 57-51. Salem battled from down double digits in the second half to cut the lead to just 1 with under 20 seconds left but Champaign in free throws to win the game. Avery Gullion scored 20 points and added 5 blocked shots. Ryegan Warren finished with 14, Payton Gullion 10 and Kaeden Bevolo led Salem with 6 rebounds. Landyn Cooper led the Maroons with 24. Salem falls to 12-12 and will be back in action Tuesday at Wesclin.
The first game of the night saw Gateway Legacy bounce back from a 53-point loss in their opener to Mt Vernon, and turned the script completely as they knocked off Carbondale 83-75. Sarp Caki was amazing for the Lions as he hit many highlight reel shots on his way to a tournament high 33 points. Bruno Krauss picked up 4 fouls in the game’s first 5 minutes, but his coach kept him in the game and he did not foul out and finished with 25.
