Panthers complete three-peat by winning another State Farm Holiday Classic championship

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — When Central-Southeastern girls basketball coach Matt Long burned a timeout 2 minutes, 13 seconds into the second half Monday, his players fully understood why.

“We had some dumb turnovers and silly decisions,” senior forward Lauren Miller said.

A 14-point halftime advantage had been sliced in half as Bloomington Central Catholic opened the third quarter of the State Farm Holiday Classic small school girls bracket championship on a 7-0 run. At that point, CSE had yet to attempt a second-half shot.

“Coach Long basically said you’re going to lose this game if you don’t stop making mistakes,” Miller said. “We knew that. … We definitely knew that we needed to change something. We knew we were going to come back and play smarter.”

One shot jumpstarted that. Lexi Niekamp buried a 3-point to push the Panthers’ lead back to double digits and spark a 15-5 run over the remainder of the third quarter, catapulting CSE to a 62-35 victory at the Shirk Center and its third consecutive Classic championship.

The Panthers (15-2) are just the second team in any of the four brackets in the history of the State Farm Holiday Classic to win three straight titles.

“Being a part of that three-peat is pretty special,” Miller said. “Knowing what it’s like, knowing what it means to the program, this is special. We’ve been in the tournament forever, so getting a win and playing well is a big deal.

“It’s really competitive and a great tournament to be in. I’m definitely going to miss it.”

Long embraced the history being made, too.

“I didn’t realize how special a deal it was until after we completed it,” Long said. “Sometimes I don’t give myself time to enjoy early wins because you have your eye on something bigger. But after we did this, and being told we are only the second team to ever do it, it’s special.

“When you realize how long that tournament has been going on, you realize you took advantage of a pretty special opportunity.”

The hope is it sets the Panthers up for more success.

“We don’t know this just yet, but we’ve always come home from this tournament a lot better team,” Long said. “That has yet to be answered, but if we can come home and be better than what we were over here, we’re going to be where we want to be.”

The next 11 days will tell a lot.

The Panthers travel to Breese Mater Dei on Saturday, before playing host to undefeated and state-ranked Quincy Notre Dame next week. A non-conference matchup with state-ranked Pecatonica in the Northwest Illinois Shootout in Lanark follows on Jan. 11.

“It gives us confidence and momentum going into those games,” Miller said of the State Farm Holiday Classic championship. “It’s a great accomplishment, but we know it’s going to take a lot more work to make sure things continue to get better. That’s what we’re going to try to do, get better each practice and each game.”

Miller will be leading the way. She scored 29 points in Monday’s title game and earned all-tournament honors after netting 99 points total in the four games. Niekamp added 13 points, while senior Karly Peters had seven assists and Kayli Bockhold had nine points, including knocking down a 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer.

“That was a big shot, too,” Long said. “That kept our momentum going.”

The Panthers see no reason the momentum will fade.

“We’re close and we’re going to be honest with each other,” Miller said. “Sometimes we might not be playing our best and we make it known. Everybody is striving to change something, to do something different, to get better. Trusting each other is built in practice with the reps and we have that.

“Keep trusting each other and having the same mindset is going to take us where we want to go. We’re going to keep pushing to reach our goals.”