Christmas Tournament: Central avenges tournament loss to Charleston, advances to final

Central suffered a 20-point loss at the hands of Charleston in the championship game of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament a year ago.

When the two teams met in a semifinal game of the tournament Saturday night at the Show Me Center, it was nearly the opposite outcome.

The Tigers defeated two-time defending tournament champion Charleston 71-47 and advanced to the championship game for the second consecutive year.

"Losing to them in the championship game last year was hard," Central senior Jamal Cox said. "It just felt good going out there and battling, playing tough and getting a win."

Charleston's Delfincko Bogan scored the first basket of the game, but the second-seeded Bluejays never led after that.

"It happens," Charleston coach Danny Farmer said. "You've just got to pack up and try to live another day."

Central held a 10-point advantage after the first quarter with help from guard Al Young, who had 11 of the Tigers' 21 points.

"We want to go inside, you know, that's no secret," Central coach Drew Church said. "Our bigs are our main part of our offense. We were able to find them some and get one of their big guys in foul trouble, but then we had some guards step up and get some buckets in transition and we passed the ball well. I just thought it was a total team effort tonight."

Central freshman KwayÄôChon ChisomCQ works to get past Charleston sophomore Kelvondre MooreCQ during the Tigers' 71-47 win over the Blue Jays in the third round of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament Saturday, Dec. 28, at the Show Me Center. Central will play the Jackson Indians in the championship game Monday at 7:30. (Adam Vogler)

Charleston went on a 6-0 run to start the second quarter to make it 21-17, but would never come any closer. Central answered with 10 consecutive points and led by 12 at halftime.

The Tigers outscored Charleston 17-8 in the third quarter to all but seal the victory.

Central was able to slow down Charleston's leading scorer Delfincko Bogan, who scored 24 points and hit three 3-pointers in the Bluejays' quarterfinal victory Friday. Bogan finished with 19 points. He hit one 3-pointer and was 10 of 12 on free throw attempts.

"We know he's a great player and Shandor [Webster's] a great player," Church said. "We just wanted them to take shots that were tough shots -- contested or outside shots because they're very good at getting in the lane and making plays and they're very good in transition. That was our goal, and I think we did somewhat of a good job of doing that."

Webster, who missed time after being called for his third foul with 5:49 left in the second quarter, was limited to seven points in Charleston's loss.

Charleston shot 1 of 21 from 3-point range. Bogan knocked one down early in the first quarter before the Bluejays went cold.

"We were going to spread the floor, see if we could knock it down," Farmer said. "We realized we couldn't make the outside, so we wanted to penetrate. We had some easy ones under the bucket and the big guys intimidated us a little bit. We missed some easy shots."

Those "big guys" also helped Central on offense. Cox and Andre Statam finished with 17 and 19 points, respectively.

Charleston (6-4) plays No. 5 seed Scott County Central for third place at 6 p.m. Monday at the Show Me Center.

Central (4-4) will face top-seeded Jackson in the title game at 7:30 p.m. Monday.

"It's going to be a real big game, college atmosphere," Statam said. "I think our team's ready to play. I think they'll be ready to play, so it's going to be a hard game."

Central 21 16 17 17 -- 71

Charleston 11 14 8 14 -- 47

CENTRAL (71) -- Niklus Thompson 1, Al Young 15, Jalen Reddin 2, Jamal Cox 17, Chase Haggerty 6, Mikey Jones 9, Dusty Tolbert 2, Andre Statam 19. FG 28, FT 14-18. (3-pointers: Young 1. Fouled out: none)

CHARLESTON (47) -- Christian Allen 1, Robert Bogan 17, Delfincko Bogan 19, Demontrail Clark 2, Shandor Webster 7, Mike Kellum 1. FG 14, FT 18-26. (3-pointers: D. Bogan 1. Fouled out: none)