Published: November 03, 2009 11:44 pm      

Field, Raccoon advance in winner’s bracket

57th annual Rome Grade School tournament

By JACK CLARK

jackclark@mvn.net



DIX — On the second night of the 57th staging of the Rome basketball tournament, the Field Panthers and the Raccoon Blue Devils each advanced in the championship bracket at Rome Grade School.

In the first of two games, Field defeated the Bluford Trojans 56-23.

Then, in the second game, Raccoon got a win over the Opdyke-Belle Rive Roadrunners, 47-38.

The Rome Tournament is the oldest junior high tournament in Illinois, having held the first set of games in January 1953.

In the spring of 1963, the Jefferson County Athletic Association voted to reduce the number of invitational tournaments held in the county to just one per year.

The decision was made to offer the one tournament to the schools in alphabetical order, so Bluford Grade School hosted a tournament in January 1964.

The only other tournament held at the time was the Jefferson County Tournament at the end of the basketball season.

This constituted the annual end of the games for the county grade schools, since, at that time, Mt. Vernon Junior High, now Casey Middle School, was the only school in the county that was a member of the Southern Illinois Junior High School Athletic Association.

The JCAA abandoned the lone-tourney idea at their 1964 spring meeting and the Rome Tournament returned in late October 1964, later to move to November where it has been ever since.

Even though the tournament was not held during the 1963-64 school year, it has been held each calendar year since its inception. The county grade schools began joing the SIJHSAA in 1965.

In action on the court on Tuesday, Robert Grider led all scorers in the first game with 18 points for Field. Thomas Weber and J.J. Wiegel each added eight.

Even with the win the Field coach saw room for improvement.

“The kids tonight looked tonight like we were pressing a little too much,” said Panther coach Don Johnson. “Nobody was sharp. The passing was sloppy. That’s not the way that we have been playing this year. But, I’m happy with the end result.”

Tyler Welch led the Trojans with 10 points. Logan Blackford finished with nine points and Jaxon Helm had four.

“We’ve got to work harder if we want to win some basketball games this year,” said Trojans coach Aaron Webb. “I was proud of a few of our kids tonight, the way that they came out and played, but we’ve got to out-work and out-hustle people and we didn’t do that tonight.”

OBR closed an eight-point deficit twice in the second half of their hotly contested match-up with Raccoon. The scoreboard showed a two-point differential with 60 seconds to play, but a series of mishaps within the final minute proved too much for the Roadrunners to overcome.

“They played very well. Our defense was good. I thought that our defense was good enough to win,” said Roadrunner coach Rick Taaka. “We made a lot of turnovers and that’s where the game was for us tonight.”

The tournament continues tonight with a consolation-bracket contest between Iuka and Waltonville at 5 p.m. The night’s second game will pit Monday night winner Wayne City against the tournament’s top seed, Woodlawn at 6:30 p.m.

The final game of the evening sees Field playing second seed Rome at 8 p.m.

The tournament will continue on Thursday, with the championship game slated for Friday.