From the Pantagraph:
MOLINE — The wrong team was nicknamed the Flyers on Friday night.
Normal Community High School’s basketball team beat East St. Louis at its own game in the Class 4A Moline Sectional championship game. The 10th-ranked Ironmen flew down the court and literally ran East St. Louis out of Wharton Field House to earn their first sectional crown since 1976.
Anthony Beane led four NCHS starters in double figures with 21 points as the Ironmen shot 69 percent from the field — thanks to 16 layups — to rout the Flyers, 81-64.
“To get a banner in our gym you have to get to the Elite Eight or better, so we finally get a banner in our gym,” said NCHS coach Dave Witzig. “It’s a great night for our school and basketball program.”
What’s even better is NCHS (26-6) gets to play the next game in its hometown. The Ironmen meet Crete-Monee at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Normal Super-sectional at Redbird Arena.
To say East St. Louis was stunned would be an understatement.
“They made a lot of layups, but they hit a lot of shots, too,” said first-year East St. Louis coach Ray Coleman. “When you’ve got a team making layups and then hitting shots outside, that gets in these young guys’ head. They’re like, ‘What can we do to stop this?’ ”
Parker Musselman and Chase Robbins added 16 points each for NCHS, while Anthony Goodar had 15. In addition to making 29-of-42 field goal attempts, NCHS also sank 18 of 24 free throws.
“We tried to take what they gave us,” said Musselman. “Early we got out to a lot of fast breaks and easy buckets and we were hitting shots, which was nice for us.”
At the start it appeared East St. Louis (23-9) would be giving NCHS a clinic. The Flyers took a 13-6 lead before Witzig called a timeout with 4:44 left in the first half.
“We knew East St. Louis was explosive and could go on runs like that,” said Witzig, whose teams had lost three sectional title games in the last 12 years. “We had to settle down and get back on defense. I thought we did a great job breaking the press and scoring on their press and getting some easy shots.”
NCHS went on a 16-2 run to grab a 22-15 lead after the first quarter and forced Coleman to take off the press.
But the Ironmen kept attacking. When seldom-used sophomore Trevor Seibring made two jumpers in the last minute of the second quarter, Witzig said he knew it was “a magical night” as the Ironmen enjoyed a 46-27 halftime lead thanks to 18-of-24 shooting which included eight layups.
“When we execute we usually get layups. That’s what we worked on,” said Beane. “They didn’t help in the middle (on the full-court press), so when our big men caught the ball both of our guards blast and that’s usually when we’re open.”
Coleman probably wished he never showed his team a tape from Feb. 5 when O’Fallon beat NCHS, 60-49.
“They didn’t look that fast, but I told the kids this is one game,” said Coleman. “That was then, and this is playoff basketball. Let’s not disrespect this team. It seemed getting an early lead was kind of a curse on us.”
NCHS upped its lead to 70-45 early in the fourth quarter. East St. Louis made a brief comeback, cutting the gap to 75-62 on Brandon Weston’s 3-pointer with 2:30 left, before Robbins made four free throws and Beane a pair to thwart the rally. NCHS was 11 of 12 at the line in the fourth quarter.
“It’s awesome,” said Musselman, a 6-foot-8 senior. “Our seniors are leaving their mark here and hopefully they can follow it up with some more big wins here.”
East St. Louis played without its leading scorer, Keante Minor, who wore a walking boot on a severely sprained ankle. Weston and Johnny McCray paced the Flyers, who shot 39 percent from the field (25 of 64), with 15 points each.
This was NCHS’ fourth sectional title in school history, with the others coming in 1942 and 1969. The Ironmen’s only trip to the state finals was in 1942 when there was one class and 16 teams advanced.
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