Charleston wins Christmas Tournament

Congratulations to the Charleston boys basketball team.

The Blue Jays held off the upset-minded Advance Hornets to claim the championship game of the 72nd annual Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament on Friday night at the Show Me Center.

Charleston, the top seed in the tournament, defeated the seventh-seeded Hornets 66-60 to win its 18th Christmas Tournament title and first since 2012.

Advance had quite the impressive run, upsetting No. 2 Cape Central and No. 3 Jackson to reach the championship game for the first time since 2000.

"No one was expecting to get this far, I don't think," Advance senior Dawson Mayo said after the Hornets' semifinal win. "It ain't that we want to stop. I mean we're proud of where we're at, but we don't want to stop. We want to keep trying to go on and win the whole thing. But it's definitely going to be something to remember."

It was definitely a memorable tournament.

There's plenty of season left, and we're looking forward to following along as our local teams compete in the postseason. We wish them all the best of luck down the stretch.

Thank you to all the players, coaches, referees, volunteers, sponsors and fans who helped make this year's tournament a great one. Thanks to tournament director Matt Asher for a successful tournament.

If you haven't gotten enough of the tournament you can listen to the Semoball Podcast for a tournament wrapup at semoball.com/podcast. The championship game is available to watch in full at semoball.com/christmas.