One thousand seven hundred and seventy-three days—that’s how long it's been since the Jr. Bills basketball team has beaten CBC on the hardwood. Purple and gold continue to nauseate the SLUH basketball program as they fell 57-54 to the Cadets on Tuesday, sliding to 2-2 on the season. Prior to that, the Jr. Bills kicked off their season with the Alton Tournament, where they won their first two games before losing to Belleville East in the finals.

SLUH opened their tournament against Jennings, who returned ten players from last year's squad, so going into the game they had the upper hand in terms of experience. Furthermore, SLUH was down four-year starter Zach Ortwerth, which threatened to create issues with height, rebounding, and scoring.

Luckily for the Jr. Bills, that was not an issue. Senior AJ Walker Jr. came to play, scoring 20 points to go along with four steals and three assists. Senior Richard Phillips swallowed up rebounds all night, senior Cayman Butler scored nine, and both senior Cal Kreuter and junior Charlie Isom-McCall scored eight. SLUH won 51-44. 

“One thing that we have been doing pretty well this year is shooting the ball,” said Phillips. “We have a lot of shooters on the team that are able to knock down shots. This can be big for our scoring and winning games.”

After an important round one win, the semifinal matchup was against the host of the tournament: Alton. Alton was coming hot off an 88-67 win over Carnahan, so defense was the main focus for SLUH. Guard Byron Stampley, Alton’s leading scorer, put up 29 points in the first game and Jamion Everage was coming off of a 15-point show. 

Phillips was tasked with guarding the explosive Stampley, and Walker was assigned to Everage. Both seniors showed up on the defensive end, allowing only 8 points combined, compared to the 44 in their opening game. Although the main weapons for Alton were covered, three-point specialist Blake Hall was good for one three-pointer a quarter and ended the night with 14. 

Walker posted his second 20-plus point performance to lead SLUH to a 59-42 win to improve to 2-0 on the year. 

“Our performance against Alton gave us a preview of the winning culture we need to get used to at SLUH,” said Butler. “It felt good to beat them on their own floor.”

A now confident SLUH squad headed into the championship match to face the Belleville East Lancers. The Lancers were playing good basketball going into the game, shown by their 69-35 victory over Lift for Life and a 65-52 win over O’Fallon. East was led by Jordan Pickett, who was coming off of 26- and 22-point performances and a three-point shooting percentage of 65 percent. 

The physicality of the Lancers was aided by the officials letting the two teams play. 

The Jr. Bills missed the physical presence of Ortwerth, despite Phillips playing great on the defensive side of the ball, and the scoreboard showed it. The Jr. Bills were held to fewer than five points in three of the four quarters. The Lancers dominated on both sides of the ball en route to a 59-25 final win. Despite the disappointing result, Walker and Phillips were both awarded all-tournament honors and the team had an important early season awakening. 

“We got sped up too much in the Belleville East game,” said Phillips. “We weren't playing our game anymore.”

The key for SLUH to find success against CBC was shooting well, playing good defense, and limiting turnovers. They did two of the three of those at a high level.

SLUH faced off against a new look CBC team in the Cadets season opener. Last year, the state champion Cadets that knocked SLUH out in Sectionals were led by Rob Martin, Larry Hughes Jr., and Jon Bol. All three are gone. There was a scoring void that needed to be filled for CBC and it was unclear who was going to fill it. The Cadets that played Tuesday night combined for only 10.3 points per game last season, a number that was trumped by Walker alone, who averaged 10.5 points per game last year. 

On the SLUH side, Ortwerth returned from his hand injury; however, the Jr. Bills still did not have a full lineup as they were without starting big man Cayman Butler, who was out with an illness. 

The Alton Tournament proved to be vital for the Jr. Bills in the first quarter as the Cadets came out slow, inexperienced, and uncertain. They still had their opening night jitters and committed seven turnovers in the first quarter. SLUH played the best defense they had all season and only gave up six points in the first quarter. 

“We were off to a solid start, especially defensively,” said Walker. “Our plan was to pressure them from the start.”

The start of the second quarter was more of the same. SLUH didn’t allow a basket until over three minutes of clock had drained, and they extended their lead to five. However, cracks began to show for the Jr. Bills. SLUH became sick with the turnover bug that plagued the Cadets early and a plethora of uncontested layups on fastbreaks felt like deja vu from last season. SLUH entered the break up 18-17, their lead sliced to just one. 

CBC came out of halftime firing on all cylinders. The Cadets caused havoc in SLUH’s backcourt and forced bad shots and more turnovers that led a CBC 13-3 run to open up a nine-point lead. As expected. They just needed a half to get warmed up. 

SLUH teams of years past have been in this same spot and folded over. Ortwerth and Walker had seen that story before, and they wanted a different ending. Ortwerth started with a corner three that cut the lead to six and Walker got two quick steals and converted on the other end. The 8-0 run by the veteran seniors got the Jr. Bills right back in it. Dylan Humprey and Jalen Jones followed their lead by getting points on the board and at the end of the third quarter, the game was still up for grabs. 

As the fourth quarter got underway, Ortwerth, Walker, and Phillips kept SLUH competitive on the offensive end, but unlike the first quarter, CBC was scoring too. However, it was not because of poor defense. All five starters, notably Kreuter, hunkered down on the defensive end. The Cadets almost exclusively scored on fast break points and points off turnovers. 

SLUH stayed down 3 to 5 points throughout the entire quarter until Isom-McCall hit a huge three in the left corner over a CBC defender to cut the lead to one with less than 90 seconds to go. SLUH was down and had to foul. And CBC gave SLUH every chance in the world to stay in the game, missing six free throws in the last two minutes. 

In the waning seconds, off a missed CBC free throw, Walker was able to find Isom-McCall in the same spot he had just scored: the left corner. Unfortunately, Isom-McCall did not get the shot off in time and a Cadet came flying from the paint to block his shot. SLUH fell to CBC 57-54. 

“I thought that we had lots of offensive possessions where we were just careless with the basketball which cost us the game,” said Kreuter. “That being said, we were also able to convert on some possessions with drive and kicks to get open threes. We’re trying to get healthy for our tournament opener in the Blue Springs Tournament next weekend against Bentonville. They’re a tough team and we’ll have to play together and communicate on D.” 

SLUH will begin their quest in the Blue Springs Tournament against Bentonville, Ark. next Thursday.