New look, same First State Community Bank Holiday Classic

Around this time of the year, many high school basketball fans have one thing on their minds, Christmas tournaments. Whether it be the Clarkton Holiday Tournament, the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament or the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament, December is a great month for basketball.

The 28th Annual First State Community Bank Holiday Classic is set to start this Saturday and continue through the following Thursday. The tournament has a new look this year with a field of 12 teams, the top four seeds getting a first-round bye. Also this year, the champions of the last four tournaments, Notre Dame, are missing from the field, leaving the championship wide open. The tournament's first two days will be held at Saxony Lutheran High School before moving to the Show Me Center.

Delta has the 1-seed as the Bobcats are currently 6-0 with wins over two other teams in the tournament, Oak Ridge and Scott City. Coach David Heeb and the Bobcats have performed well in the past and with Notre Dame absent could be poised for a championship trophy. Delta is talented in many ways but is mostly known for a vicious full-court press and huge scorelines.

“Our press is so much different this year,” Heeb said. “We’ve tinkered with it all summer and I think it’s our best press (ever). The last couple of years our press has been devastating and it was really good for different reasons. This group is just so smart about playing the angles and getting into position to tip passes and things like that.”

Moving down the list, Jackson, Saxony Lutheran and St. Vincent round out the top four and are favorites to win as well.

Jackson, the two-seed is currently 3-3 under first-year head coach Angela Fulton. The Indians have been a victim of Notre Dame in this tournament and similar to Delta could hoist the trophy with the Bulldogs gone. Coach Fulton has said this is a great group who are still figuring things out, if they come into the tournament with things figured out, they could prove to be dangerous.

“We lost a good chunk last year, even the coach, so we're trying to figure each other out. The best part about it is it's still really early in the season, so we have plenty of time,” Fulton said. “This is a good group of girls, so I do not doubt that we'll figure it out.”

Saxony Lutheran (5-3) is the 3-seed and has had a rocky start to the season, losing to Cape Central but also pulling out a triple-overtime victory against St. Vincent. The Crusaders are an upperclassmen-heavy team with their older players doing much of the heavy lifting. Coach Chris Crawford has had nothing but good things to say about his upperclassmen, including senior Evie Caruso who has been

an offensive workhorse thus far.

“She does a lot of hard work underneath,” Crawford said. “We’ve been working hard on getting the ball into her and making sure that she has options when she does get the ball.”

St. Vincent rounds out the top four and the Indians own the 4-seed with a record of 4-3. The 3OT loss to Saxony is the only game they have played against other tournament teams, and in that game, they lost arguably their best player in junior Allie Patrick to a season-ending knee injury.

The other eight teams that will participate will include the #5 Kelly Hawks, #6 Woodland Cardinals, #7 Scott City Rams, #8 Cape Central Tigers, #9 Oak Ridge Blue Jays, #10 Scott County Central Braves, #11 Meadow Heights Panthers, #12 Cairo (IL) Pilots.

These teams start play on Saturday with the winners moving on to face the top four and the losers entering the consolation side of the bracket. The first game of the day will be Cape Central and Oak Ridge at 11 a.m.