Top two seeds to square off Saturday night in Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament

Just like last year, the Cape Central Tigers and Jackson Indians will square off in the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament championship.

The championship is slated for 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 30, at the Show Me Center.

While the two teams are the same, the rosters look slightly different.

The Tigers lost Cam Williams, Maurice Boyd, Clayton McClard and Jaedon Reed from the 2022 team.

Jackson is dealing with the loss of Kaed Winborne, Clayton Ernst, Grant Borgfield and Steven Schneider.

Despite this, both teams are back in the title game.

For Cape Central, they defeated Notre Dame 58-23 to earn its trip.

It took the defending champs a quarter to get going, but once the Tigers did, they took care of business quickly by getting out in transition.

“Anytime we can get some easy ones and especially ones where you have some great passes or dunks, it just really gets us going,” Tigers coach Drew Church said. “It also gives us a chance to not have to run around on defense all the time. Anytime we can get some easy transition buckets it’s good for us.”

For the Indians, they survived a slow start in the first half and rally to beat Charleston 63-58.

The driving force in the win was Kole Deck, who poured in 32 points in the win.

The junior has seemingly taken the region by storm, especially with the absence of Blayne Harris to injury.

As the Indians were rallying in Thursday’s semifinal matchup with the Blue Jays, Deck had a dunk to capture momentum for Jackson.

“All it takes is one play to flip the momentum,” Deck said. “That dunk, I felt like we flipped it. If we’ve got the momentum, more shots are gonna go in, for sure.”

Now that we’ve established how both clubs got to the championship game, let’s look at what each club will need to do to come out victorious.

Perhaps the biggest key for Jackson will be slowing the game down on offense.

That is exactly what Notre Dame did on Thursday night, and it allowed the Bulldogs to hang around early while also making the Tigers dig in on the defensive end.

“Notre Dame did a great job of really being deliberate with their offense,” Church said. “They were being very patient, making 13, 14 and 15 passes and that’s hard to guard for that sustained amount of time.”

Regardless of how the Indians decide to game plan for Saturday’s contest, Jackson coach Kory Thoma understands the talent level the Tigers have.

“Drew Church has done a really good job with that crew. They’re playing excellent defense. They're unselfish players, they’re – they're just really good. There are five or six kids that he's got that he rotates in that are about as good as you can get.

For Cape Central, their success will be predicated on the defensive end, especially if Jackson tries to slow the pace down.

The Tigers will obviously need to value each possession on offense, but limiting Jackson to one shot on each possession will be key in coming out of Saturday night with a win.

Following the semifinal win after Notre Dame, the Tigers got to wait around and see who their challenger would be in the championship.

For Church, however, it didn’t matter who the Tigers played. He knew they were going to have their hands full either way.

“Either way it’s going to be a dogfight,” Church said. “Both are tough teams and well-coached with very talented players.”

The championship isn’t the only action taking place on Saturday.

The ninth-place game between Scott County Central and Bell City will tip at 3 p.m. to begin the day.

The fifth-place duel between Kelly and Scott City is slated for 4:30 p.m., while the third-place game between Notre Dame and Charleston is scheduled for 6 p.m.

Can’t make it out to the Show Me Center on Saturday? Check out a live streaming of all four games taking place at the Show Me Center on the Southeast Missourian’s Facebook page.