PIECE OF CAKE: TIGERS WRAP UP UNDEFEATED SEMO SEASON

Tuesday night, Cape Girardeau Central High's boys basketball team ate its cake.

Wednesday night, the Tigers devoured their icing.

Central had clinched the SEMO Conference championship Tuesday by scoring the game's final 21 points to defeat Charleston.

The Tigers put an undefeated cap on its conference season Wednesday by once again rallying, this time to beat visiting Kennett 64-56.

Central, by winning its fourth straight game and six out of its last seven, improved to 13-11 overall and finished with a 6-0 league record.

"I'm really proud of the guys," said Central coach Brett Reutzel. "We started off kind of slow this year. We're young and our seniors hadn't had a lot of varsity experience.

"It took time to find the continuity we needed. And we play a rough schedule, so we have to be playing well to beat a lot of teams."

Reutzel figured the Tigers would not be at their best to start Wednesday's game since their emotional, comeback win over Charleston the previous night had already locked up the SEMO Conference crown.

"I probably heard that 10 times, about whether we'd have a letdown," said Reutzel with a laugh. "I tried to use that angle, but it didn't work until halftime."

Central trailed 31-20 at the intermission but a 26-11 third-quarter edge put the Tigers over the top.

"Kennett is a good team with some good players," Reutzel said. "At halftime, we just talked about what we needed to do.

"We weren't very patient in the first half. We got the ball inside more in the second half. We showed more patience and we also picked up our defense."

Ross Conner, the Tigers' athletic 6-foot-4 junior who is already drawing college attention, scored 15 of his game-high 23 points in the second half.

Junior guard Donnie McClinton added 16 points, 14 coming in the second half.

Kennett, which fell to 13-9, got 14 points from both Prentiss Brown and Noll Billings. Anton McKinney added 11 points.

Central scored the game's first basket but Kennett owned the rest of the opening half. The Indians used a 9-0 run to go up 9-2 and they led 14-6 at the end of one quarter. It was 31-20 at halftime.

The Tigers, however, controlled the third quarter. Eric Wessel scored all nine of his points over the first three minutes of the period while Conner also had nine in the quarter.

McClinton's driving basket with 1:45 left in the period put the Tigers ahead 40-38 -- marking their first lead since it was 2-0.

Central never fell behind again, although Kennett managed two ties. Conner's basket with 15 seconds left in the third put the Tigers ahead for good at 44-42 and McClinton got a fast-break layup at the buzzer to make it 46-42 heading into the final period.

The Tigers led by as many as 10 points down the stretch before holding off a late Kennett charge.

Central will close out the regular season Friday night by hosting St. Louis University High. The Junior Billikens are coached by Cape Girardeau native Don Maurer, who formerly coached at Notre Dame.

"Coach Maurer has a good program going up there and they play in a tough league," Reutzel said. "It's going to be a difficult game for us, but we'll have senior night and hopefully we'll continue to play well."