Christmas Tournament: Jackson beats Central to earn championship

Jackson senior Calvin Lysell reminded his teammates on the bus ride to the Show Me Center on Monday that for the six seniors on the boys basketball team it was their last year to fulfill one of their childhood dreams.

He said, 'You know, this has been our dream since like third grade' because we'd always come here, sit up in the top row and just watch it," senior forward Karson King said of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament. "So this was our dream and doing it your senior year is definitely awesome."

The top-seeded Indians made their dream come true and remained undefeated as they topped third-seeded Central 59-55 to claim the championship. The title is Jackson's first since 2007.

Jackson (9-0) jumped out on top of the Tigers early with the help of King, who had 14 points by halftime. The Indians led by as many as 10 points and held a 27-18 advantage at halftime, but it wasn't the end for Central.

The Tigers (4-5) started the second half on an 8-0 run to pull within one point with 3 minutes, 57 seconds left in the third quarter. Jackson turned the ball over three times during that stretch.

Cape Central's Jamal Cox celebrates his slam dunk in the fourth quarter, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013, during the Tigers' Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament title game against the Jackson Indians at the Show Me Center. Jackson won 59-55. (Laura Simon)

"The King kid was hurting us in the post, so we changed up how we did our zone a little bit," Central coach Drew Church said about the halftime adjustments his team made. "And we talked about at halftime -- we didn't play well the first half. And that's not anything against them, it was probably because of them, but we were a little too hyper. We've got some young kids, and we did not play well the first half. I think they were kind of calmed down the second half and took it in and were able to make some more plays coming out of the gate."

Both teams got in some foul trouble early and it forced Jackson to substitute its post players for each other. Blake Reynolds and Brandon Lueders, standing at 6-7 and 6-8, respectively, both had to spend some time on the bench when the game got close.

Reynolds, a member of the all-tournament team, did not start the game and was hampered by an ankle injury that occurred in the semifinals.

"That was huge because our bigs play together well, and that's kind of how our offense is designed," Jackson coach Darrin Scott said. "We always had one big that was out, so we really had to work hard to get into some offensive movement. I thought in that second half, late in the third quarter into the fourth quarter, we did a much better job moving on offense and we got some good looks then."

Jackson fans dance in the stands in the fourth quarter, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013, during the Indians' Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament title game against the Cape Central Tigers at the Show Me Center. Jackson won 59-55. (Laura Simon)

The teams traded baskets in the final minutes of the third quarter -- the biggest being at the end of the quarter. Central forward Andre Statam hit a 3 with mere seconds remaining, but Jackson point guard Josh Daume caught an inbound pass and launched a half-court shot that went in as time expired to give Jackson a 41-37 cushion heading into the final eight minutes.

"I'm not going to lie, I hung my head," King said. "I was like, 'Dang, he made another 3?' He was tough to stop tonight. I hung my head, but then I threw it in quick to Daume because Daume, that's all he works on after practice. No, but he works on a lot of half-court shots. He doesn't make many of them, but then I saw that one go in and I was like, my jaw dropped to the floor."

Central marched back and tied the game at 46-46 with 5:02 remaining on a Jamal Cox dunk. But in the final five minutes, Daume hit seven of eight free throws and King scored four points to seal the victory.

"I thought more than anything else I thought we competed very hard," Church said. "Tough game. They're a very good team and they're tough to play against. This was kind of going to be a test of where we're at because, like I said they're a No. 2, 3 team in the state, and it kind of gives us an idea of where we're at and what we need to work on."

Statam led all scorers with 28 points and helped his team stay in the game early when he scored Central's five first-quarter points. He hit four 3-pointers and was 6 of 7 from the free throw line in the Tigers' loss.

"We've got to find some guys to kind of move in and take the pressure off him," Church said. "You know, Jamal [Cox] and Al [Young] are going and if we can get a couple other of our guards to step up and give us some -- not that they didn't -- but give us some good things offensively we'll be fine."

Central 5 13 19 18 -- 55

Jackson 11 16 14 18 -- 59

CENTRAL (55) -- Al Young 13, Jamal Cox 12, Mikey Jones 2, Andre Statam 28. FG 20, FT 11-13. (3-pointers: Statam 4. Fouled out: Jalen Reddin)

JACKSON (59) -- Josh Daume 10, Braden Wendel 9, Calvin Lysell 3, Karson King 21, Connor Shepard 5, Blake Reynolds 2, Brandon Lueders 9. FG 18, FT 17-23. (3-pointers: Daume 1, Wendel 1, Lysell 1, King 2, Lueders 1. Fouled out: Reynolds)