Eagles capture second straight regional crown
A hot start by Eldorado, followed by a muscle flexing performance down the stretch was the difference in the Eagles capturing their second straight regional title with a 51-30 victory over Carmi-White County Friday night at the Fairfield Class 2A Regional.
This was the third meeting between the two schools this year, where even though Eldorado won both meetings (one in overtime and the other by three points on a last second shot), Eagles head coach Josh Bradley said some motivation for the trilogy came from some "bulletin board" material provided by CWC.
"All week long Carmi has talked so much about his this was a dream matchup, this is a game that they wanted and if you read their newspaper and listen to their coaches, you would come away thinking they won those games. They didn't and we did and we wanted this game and we responded well in the first half, shutting them down defensively. We missed a few shots, but stayed patient and got the ball inside and for these guys to accomplish back-to-back regionals is something I have very proud of."
It was a hot start for Eldorado, who jumped out to a 10-4 lead, thanks in large part to 10 straight points from Ray May. The Eagles closed out the first quarter up 17-4, 12 of which came from May.
May had a buzzer beating layup to close out the first half to give EHS a 23-11 lead.
Eldorado forced CWC into 10 first quarter turnovers and finished the first half forcing the Bulldogs into 14 miscues.
"We knew (Carmi) was going to be fired up, ready to play," Bradley said. "We felt like if we could come out early and break their will, we had a chance to maybe win by 10 or 12 points and keep it there. I thought our kids responded to that very well. We made (Carmi) work for everything offensively and it really frustrated them in the first half and even though we didn't shoot the ball great, we were able to maintain because of that effort in the first quarter."
Carmi-White County, who trailed by as many as 15 points, made a mini comeback in the third quarter, getting as close as seven points, twice. Once at the 4:16 mark on a bucket by Travis Black and against at the 2:30 mark when Ethan Mahon knocked down a jumper to make it 27-20.
From there, Braden Attebury and the Eagles went to work.
Attebury scored four consecutive points and as a team, Eldorado went on a 13-0 run before Carmi's Justin Lamp broke the drought with a free throw at the 5:07 mark in the fourth making it a 4-21 ballgame.
Eldorado closed the game out on a 24-10 run before Bradley subbed out his starters with less than a minute to play.
"It's something that we talked about at halftime. We knew Carmi was going to go on a run and get hot and we would do something like maybe play to fast," Bradley said of the second half effort by the Bulldogs to get to within seven. "This is something that Carmi has done to us before and we just had to slow down and look to go inside and before you knew it, it went from seven to 15 to 20 and it just kept going."
May led all scorers with 14 points, while Attebury tossed in 13 in the win for Eldorado. Traxler tacked on 11 to round out the double digit scoring for the Eagles.
Lamp was the lone bulldogs to score in double figures for Carmi-White County finishing with 10 points.
John Meredith scored seven points for Eldorado, while Kale Oglesby and Joe Mayberry all had three points.
Dylan Courty and Black both had seven points for CWC, while Bryce Northcott finished with four points and Mahon had two.
Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Southern Illinois Local Media News Group. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.
Carmi-White County 04 07 09 10 - 30
Eldorado 17 06 08 20 - 51
Carmi-White County: Lamp 2 4-8 10, Courty 2 3-4 7, Northcott 2 0-0 4, Black 3 0-1 7, Mahon 1 0-0 2. Totals: 20 7-13 30.
Eldorado: Meredith 3 0-1 7, Oglesby 0 3-6 3, May 6 2-2 14, Attebury 5 1-4 13, Traxler 5 1-4 11, Mayberry 1 0-2 3. Totals: 20 9-20 51
3-point FG: CWC 3 (Lamp 2, Black), EHS 2 (Meredith, Mayberry. Fouls: CWC 19, EHS 15.