Breese Central falls in state semifinal

PEORIA, ILL. — Peoria Manual found out what other teams already knew about the Breese Central boys basketball team: they don’t quit.

Despite trailing the entire game, Central had a chance to upset the Rams before falling 39-38 in the semifinals of the Illinois Class 2A state tournament Friday night at Carver Arena.

Manual, No. 2 in the Associated Press Class 2A state poll, improved to 24-7 and will play eighth-ranked Robinson (26-5) in the final at 8:15 tonight.

Central, No. 3 in the Post-Dispatch small-schools rankings and No. 7 in the AP poll, fell to 30-4 and will play for third place against top-ranked Hales Franciscan (28-3) at 6:30 p.m. today.

Brandon Book had a team-high 11 points and Garrett Gaffner added 10 and a game-high 10 rebounds as the Cougars outrebounded the Rams 37-14.

“These guys are not quitters and they are confident in themselves,” Central coach Stan Eagleson said. “They felt at halftime that they had a chance to win the game. Even down to the last minute, if (Manual) would have missed a free throw, we’d have a chance. But …”

Manual led 31-25 with 4 minutes, 34 seconds left in the game after two free throws by Lawrence Alexander, who netted a game-best 16 points. But the Cougars kept chipping away and trailed 39-36 with 13.1 seconds to go after the Rams’ Marvin Jordan (nine points) sank two foul shots.

Central got the ball inbounds to Keaton Scheer, who drove the length of the court with Jordan in pursuit. Once Scheer got to the basket though, Jordan peeled off, allowing Scheer to score an uncontested layup with 5 seconds left. After that, Manual didn’t have to inbound the ball as time ran out.

Scheer said he didn’t think he should have tried a potential game-tying 3-point shot since he hadn’t tried one during the game and made only 17 during the season.

“The thought of me shooting like that wasn’t really going through my mind,” he said. “I thought if David (Wiegmann) or Book would take a 3, maybe take it to the basket and get fouled. But it never turned up. It just didn’t happen.”

Eagleson thought his team’s free-throw shooting was the difference. Central was nine of 15 from the line, while the Rams were eight of nine in the last quarter and 12 of 15 for the night.

“It just came down to free throws,” he said. “They made 12, we made 9. You’ve got to credit Manual.”