CSE one victory from third straight title, but Long hopes more difficult schedule has team ready for postseason

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Sure, winning a third consecutive championship at the State Farm Holiday Classic would be nice. 

The top-seeded Central-Southeastern girls basketball team received celebratory hugs and pats on the back after Saturday night’s 56-42 victory over Paris in the semifinals of the small school girls bracket. The Panthers earned a spot in Monday’s title game against Bloomington Central Catholic, which defeated Kankakee Bishop McNamara 46-39 in the other semifinal game.

However, another title is not their main focus.

Panthers coach Matt Long hasn’t forgotten the result of the final game of last season — Nashville 41, Central-Southeastern 32 in the Class 2A super-sectional.

“I always tell the kids that you’re as good as your last game, and last year, Nashville came out and took us out of our game and everything,” Long said. “So I told them coming into the year that we weren’t very good, and we just needed to fix some things. I don’t think (winning another State Farm Holiday Classic) was really on our list. It’s in the back of their minds. Now that we’re there, it’s something that we want to accomplish and take care of business.”

To prepare for teams like Nashville, which had three freshmen starters on last year’s state runner-up, Long decided to make his team’s schedule more challenging.

The season began in November at the Pana Thanksgiving Tournament, where the Panthers defeated state-ranked Brownstown/St. Elmo but lost 56-37 to Breese Mater Dei, featuring 6-foot-6 Alyssa Koerkenmeier. CSE’s other loss came on Dec. 14 in a seven-point setback to state-ranked Byron at the Abingdon Holiday Classic.

After a break following the State Farm Holiday Classic is complete, CSE (14-2) plays host to state-ranked Quincy Notre Dame, then travels Jan. 11 to Lanark for the Eastland Shootout against state-ranked Galena and Pecatonica.

“When you play teams like that, you play your top seven or eight because you have to the whole game,” Long said. “I think it gives you an idea of maybe what you need to refine and do better at. Sometimes when you don’t play a real strong schedule and you’re playing with a running clock, you go to your bench more and things like that. Nothing against our bench, they do a good job, but sometimes we felt like in the past we haven’t had enough minutes during the year with our top seven or eight kids.

“Number one on our list coming into this year was to strengthen our schedule.”

“Coach Long got us a good schedule that is preparing us,” senior Lauren Miller said. “In the moment, it might seem really tough. It’s like, man, we’re playing state-ranked teams back-to-back to state, and we know it could be tough. But in the end, we know it’s only to prepare us and make us tougher. Those are the teams we’re gonna see in the postseason.”

Paris (10-3) gave Central-Southeastern fits early. A 3-pointer by Grace Watson three minutes into the game put the Panthers behind 7-6 — their first and only deficit in this year’s tournament.

However, CSE forced 12 turnovers in the first half and, despite 1-for-11 shooting from 3-point range, led 31-18 at the intermission. Karly Peters scored 10 points in the third quarter to help the Panthers build its lead to as many as 21 points, and Paris never got closer than 13 points thereafter. The Tigers committed 20 turnovers — 17 less than Stanford Olympia and Winnebago in CSE’s first two games this week.

Miller led Central-Southeastern with 20 points, and Peters added 13. 

The Panthers have a 13-game winning streak at the State Farm Holiday Classic. Their last loss was in the 2021 quarterfinals — Miller and Peters were freshmen at the time — when No. 1-ranked Winnebago posted a 33-21 decision. 

Miller says another State Farm title would be nice, especially by defeating the Saints, who have won five tournament titles and have been the runners-up five times.  However, she plans to treat Monday like an ordinary day.

“We know how important the game is,” she said. “This is a huge game that could really be good for our program and for this team, especially the seniors. It would be really big for us to win this third one, but we’re not going to over-complicate things. We’re just going to stick to what we do best, put our emphasis on doing the little things right and just use it as another game to get better.”