Plenty of area teams participating in holiday tourneys

Dustin White

With the Christmas season comes the holiday basketball tournament season, and many meets involving area boys teams will be getting underway this weekend.

Three local clubs — Altamont, Stewardson-Strasburg and South Central — are amongst the top four seeds at the Vandalia Holiday Tournament, while Teutopolis travels south to play in the Duster Thomas Hoops Classic at Pinckneyville High School.

Neoga makes its annual trek to the Monticello Sages Holiday Hoopla meet, while Windsor makes its debut at the Tri-County Holiday Tournament in Kansas.

Many other teams of interest to Effingham County basketball fans will be in action at these tournaments, and also at Collinsville and Centralia, where Mount Zion and Salem will be in the fields.

37th Annual Vandalia Holiday Tournament

Greenville garnered the top seeding at the Vandalia tourney, while undefeated Altamont (7-0) comes in at what had to be a close second.

That means each will be the top team in its own pool as play kicks off at 9:30 a.m. Friday between No. 3 Stew-Stras and No. 9 Pana. Those two clubs join Altamont in Pool B along with No. 6 Central A&M; and No. 7 Vandalia.

Pool A contains Greenville, No. 4 South Central, No. 5 Wesclin (Trenton), No. 8 Shelbyville and No. 10 Flora.

Stew-Stras is 6-1, with its only loss in triple overtime to Illini Central Saturday at the Illinois College/Country Financial Shootout in Jacksonville.

The Comets also play host Vandalia at 8 p.m. on the meet's opening day. That game is set for 8 p.m.

South Central is 4-4, and at some point during the tournament senior forward Isaac Grapperhaus will score his 1000th career point; he is currently 37 points shy.

The Cougars, who fell to top-seeded Wesclin as the No. 2 seed in last year's ttitle game, open at 5 p.m. Friday against Shelbyville, while Altamont's first game is 3:30 p.m. against Central A&M.;

Pool play continues Saturday and Monday before Tuesday's final matchups.

Duster Thomas Hoops Classic

At Pinckneyville

A two-day, pool play event begins Friday as all eight teams will play four games by the end of Saturday's evening session between first-, second-, third- and fourth-place poor finishers.

Teutopolis is in Pool B along with Carterville, Lawrenceville and Pinckneyville; it will play Lawrenceville at 1 p.m. Friday and Pinckneyville at 8:30 p.m. Friday before taking on Carterville at 10 a.m.

Pool A contains Benton, Du Quoin, Olney and Steeleville.

The Wooden Shoes (4-2) took fourth place at last year's event with a 2-2, falling to Du Quoin in the third-place game and also losing to the host, while beating Carterville and Lawrenceville.

Monticello Sages Holiday Hoopla Tournament

Neoga (3-4) has become a fixture at Monticello and has been placed in the Gold Pool to try and get its season mark above .500 against the likes of Ridgeview, Champaign St. Thomas more and Tuscola, while Blue Ridge, Monticello, Reed Custer and Sangamon Valley (Niantic) will play it out in the Purple Pool.

The Indians' first action is Friday at 2 p.m. against St. Thomas More; pool play continues Saturday and the finals will be contested over the course of Monday afternoon and evening.

Tri-County Holiday Tournament

Windsor (2-5) ended a 29-game losing streak earlier in the year, and the Blue Devils have a chance to make that stretch ancient history as they have left the Dieterich Holiday Tournament for Tri-County's meet in Kansas.

The round-robin format gives Windsor four games from Saturday through Tuesday, with Sunday of course being an off day. Its opponents will be Martinsville, Tri-County (Kansas), Arthur and Hutsonville/Palestine.

Sesser-Valier Holiday Tournament

Midland Trail Conference fans will have on eye on Sesser as Woodlawn (5-0) and Waltonville (5-2) prepare to play as the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, respectively, in this 16-team bracketed affair.

The host is the third seed,while Zeigler-Royalton is fourth and Trico is fifth. After that is No. 6 Sparta, No. 7 New Athens and No. 8 Marissa. Play begins Friday and runs Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

Schnucks Collinsville Holiday Classic

Mount Zion (6-2) wasn't one of the four seeded teams at Collinsville, and that is probably an indicator of the overall strength of the Schnucks field.

The Braves face Oakville, Mo., in the first round at 9 a.m. Saturday, the first game of the 16-team bracketed tournament. From there, they will see either Madison or No. 3 Springfield Southeast.

66th Annual Centralia Holiday Tournament

Another large-school event featuring an Apollo school is at Centralia High School, where Salem kicks off with a 2 p.m. Monday game against Alton.

Another 16-team bracketed tournament, Centralia's meet also runs Tuesday and Wednesday. Salem's second opponent will be either Hyde Park (Chicago) or Dunlap.

Dustin White can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 123 or dustin.white@effinghamdailynews.com.

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