Eagles fall to Carterville in EHT 5th place game

Carterville built a big lead early and used time management late to beat Eldorado 56-45 for fifth place Saturday night at the Eldorado Holiday Tournament.

The Lions, who are just in their second year of the EHT, put four players in double figures as Bryce Anderson led the charge with 13 points. Carson Pearson netted 11, while Eli Downen and Preston Summer both tacked on 10 for Carterville.

Eldorado, who turned a 25-9 first half deficit into single digits later in the second half, got a team-high 14 points from Nolan Milligan, Parker Price added 11 points and Aiden Whitlock tossed in 10 points.

Bryant Byrd and Ladayyea Shewmaker each had five points a piece for the Eagles.

Carterville got to the fifth place game by beating West Frankfort 49-42.

The Lions led at the end of each quarter, taking 13-10 first quarter lead and held a 25-23 lead at halftime.

Carterville finished with three players in double figures as Bryce Anderson had a team-high 16 points, while Connor Hawkins tacked on 13 points and Eli Downen threw down 11.

Paxton Griffith had a team-high 13 points for the Redbirds and was the lone WF player to reach double figures.

In the second game of the fifth place bracket, Eldorado blew by Anna-Jonesboro, winning 66-49.

The No. 3 seeded Eagles finished with four players in double figures as Aiden Whitlock had a game-high 20 points, while Nolan Milligan notched 18 points, Parker Price tacked on 13 points and Bryant Byrd tossed in 10.

Blake Pena's 18 points and Zach Overstreet's 15 points paced the Anna-Jonesboro offense.

The Eagles went 2-2 at the EHT and now stand at 11-3 on the season. Head coach Josh Bradley believes the week that was up and down will hopefully prove to be beneficial to his program.

"We are kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde right now," Bradley said. "We are a little better than average, who tries to play hard and we have said as a coaching staff, people are going to wonder how we won some of those games, but also wonder how we lost some of those games. That's kinda what happened to us in this tournament. We didn't play well against Carmi, but came back and played really well against a good Anna-Jonesboro team."

Eldorado will return to action on January 7th at Carrier Mills High School.

Spyder Dann covers prep and college sports for the Southern Illinois Local Media News Group. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.