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East Girls Basketball 3-Peats At Duchesne, Faces Challenging Month
BY JIM WIENERS
Hazelwood East High School Girls Basketball heads into 2007 with a 9-1 record and celebrated by winning their third straight Duchesne Invitational in dominating fashion.
East, last week at the 30th Annual Duchesne Invitational, rolled past Lutheran North (53-34), Hazelwood West (60-28) and Duchesne (56-38). It is the third time that East defeated Duchesne in the host school’s tournament championship game, with the previous two wins by the Spartans were by five (2005) and eight (2004). In four championship meetings between the two schools Duchesne defeated East only once (2002) and the 21-point win by the host school that year was the largest margin between the two in the 30-year history.
East, Duchesne and the now defunct East St. Louis (Ill.) Lincoln are the only high schools to have least three-peated at the Duchesne Invitational. Only Lincoln has won four straight and did it twice (1980-83, 1990-93).
Last Saturday’s win over Duchesne, the largest margin of victory by East in three years over the host Pioneers, was attributed by teamwork. Junior forward/center Channon Haywood, who represented East on the all-Tournament team at Duchesne, said “we played as a team. We played really good.”
One of the reasons East, who returned five starters from last years fourth-place finish in Girls Class Five State, was the ability to put pressure on the opposition. “We put on the pressure,” said East head coach Terry Creamer, and the Spartans like putting on the pressure.
East opens Suburban North Conference play Thursday at home, 5:30, against Pattonville, followed by a non conference home game the following Tuesday, also at 5:30, against Fort Zumwalt South. On Jan. 12 East visits McCluer North, a team that won their second consecutive John F. Kennedy Tournament — thanks to wins over Festus St. Pius X (58-21), Kennedy (62-39) and Eureka (57-45), a team that McCluer North defeated in the Kennedy Tournament Championship game two years in a row. East has defeated McCluer North the last six games including Nov. 29, 2006 in the Suburban North Tournament semifinals.
Then the schedule gets real challenging beginning Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Day against Metro in East St. Louis. Metro is the defending Class Two Girls State Champions, had about two games at the Trinity Catholic Tournament called off due to an ice storm and took fourth place in the Visitation Academy Christmas Tournament. After that East heads for the John Burroughs Tournament in hopes of winning there for the second year in a row.
Next comes two challenging home games with the eye on avenging losses. On Jan. 23 East hosts Nerinx Hall, a team that just took third place at the Visitation Academy Tournament and last year defeated East at home, 56-49, in a 21-6 season. Two days later East gets a Suburban North Tournament Championship game rematch with Hazelwood Central, a team who defeated East, 50-47, on Dec. 5 and prior to this past Wednesday lost two games in the Visitation Academy Tournament (Francis Howell Central, St. Joseph’s Academy) by one point each.
After visiting Ritenour (winless prior to this past Wednesday) on Jan. 30 East gets to close January with a trip to Incarnate Word Academy against the defending Class Five State Champions, four days after a rescheduled game at Hazelwood Central (Jan. 27) because of a power outage. Including last season IWA has won 42 of their last 44 games prior to Thursday and their only losses so far came in November (2005, 06) in the Quincy, Ill., Tournament. After winning the Ft. Smith, Ark., Tournament IWA defeated St. Louis-Notre Dame (61-14), Cor Jesu (62-33), Nerinx Hall (55-44) and Francis Howell Central (50-38) to win their third straight Visitation Academy Christmas Tournament title.
“We are going to have to get through them (especially IWA),” said Hazelwood East senior forward senior forward/center Dalila Thomas. “They all will be tough,” said Creamer.
A week before districts in February, and East hosts Class Five, District Five, the Spartans, Feb. 13, host McCluer South-Berkeley, a team that was a Class Three Quarterfinalist last year but will host Class Four, District Five. MS-Berkeley just won their own holiday tournament for the second year in a row, thanks to wins over Ritenour (83-13), Normandy (87-60) and Miller Career Academy (58-36).
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