Seniors provide spark Central-Southeastern needs to blow out Staunton in sectional semifinals

WAVERLY, Ill. — The order in which the connection occurs — Miller to Peters or Peters to Miller — doesn’t seem to matter much.

It’s lethal either way.

Tuesday night, it ruined the Staunton girls basketball team’s chance to make amends for two consecutive postseason losses to Central-Southeastern before the Bulldogs even had the chance to engage in the fight.

CSE seniors Lauren Miller and Karly Peters each scored off an assist from the other — both on the same designed play — in the first minute of the Class 2A Waverly Sectional semifinal and combined to score all 22 points in the Panthers’ first-quarter blitz that resulted in a 22-6 lead.

They combined for another 12 points in the third quarter when a 14-point halftime edge ballooned to a 32-point lead, invoking the turbo clock in the fourth quarter of CSE’s 58-22 victory in the Waverly Elementary School Gym.

“The connection comes with how long we’ve been playing the game together,” said Miller, who finished with a game-high 22 points. “We study the game together, talk a lot about the game. We find different opportunities to play off each other. We mesh really well and have similar skills. We just work well off each other.”

Staunton had no way of stopping that.

Peters scored off a backdoor lob on the game’s opening possession before Miller scored on the same play, then converted an old-fashioned three-point play and made two more free throws for a 9-0 lead with 6:13 to go in the first quarter. Peters then made a pair of 3-pointers with Miller adding another basket as the lead grew to 17-2 in a blink.

“We came out with a lot of energy,” said Peters, who finished with 18 points. “We talked on defense, and once we established that, it worked for us and began transferring to our offense.”

It was a different level of energy than the Panthers showed in winning the Class 2A Illini West Regional, a run that required a third-quarter rally against Petersburg PORTA in the title game.

“We’ve been missing that spark the last couple of games,” Miller said. “We really wanted to set the tone early, get them flustered, get our confidence up and get the crowd into it. We just wanted to get the team’s energy up.”

It was infectious.

“I was waiting for them to come out like this,” CSE coach Matt Long said. “I mentioned the other night after our game (against PORTA) I feel for the team where they decide they are going to come get it going at the get-go, and tonight was the night. It was good because (Staunton) was an awfully good team and we needed to jump on them early.”

The same will hold true at 6:30 p.m. Thursday when Central-Southeastern (29-3) faces Pleasant Plains in the sectional championship game. The Panthers have beaten the Cardinals in the postseason in back-to-back years — 43-37 in last year’s sectional championship and 36-35 in the regional opener in 2023.

Pleasant Plains (26-6) advanced with a 52-37 victory over Carlinville in Tuesday’s other semifinal.

“We game planned ahead on Plains a little bit,” Long said. “We looked ahead thinking this might be a reality, so we’ve done a little bit on them and we’ll get after it (Wednesday).”

One thing the Panthers know is to never take the foot off the pedal. CSE scored only six second-quarter points and Tuesday allowed Staunton to get within 28-14 at halftime.

“Nobody goes away this time of the year,” Miller said. “So we had to win the first four minutes of the second half, just like we did in the first half.”

The Panthers pitched a shutout the first four minutes. In fact, the Bulldogs didn’t score for the first 5 ½ minutes and trailed 42-14 before Jenna Staggs ended the drought with a 3-pointer. It was Staunton’s only field goal of the third quarter as CSE stretched the lead to 49-17.

“I told them at half that if we don’t come out and control these first four minutes it could be a long night for us,” Long said. “They responded. They came out and took control the first four minutes. We did what we needed to do with pressure and converted turnovers into points.”

It was a collective effort of energy and intensity.

“We had to come out and put the game away,” Peters said. “We knew exactly what we had to do.”