BASKETBALL: PJHS girls' season ends against Red Bud
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Red Bud held on for a nail-biting 19-17 victory over Pinckneyville Junior High School (District #50) in Tuesday night's Class M girls Regional Championship despite managing only a single point in the fourth quarter.
Pinckneyville struggled to just 7 first half points offensively as guard Maddie Jones was plagued with foul trouble and sat the entire second quarter on the bench. With Jones back in the game, the Junior Panthers raced to a 6-0 after the halftime break to grab the lead 13-10 after back-to-back baskets from Keelyn Stein.
Jones picked up her third foul just seconds later, however, and the Lady Royals were able to regain the lead 18-15 by the end of the third period.
Neither team could find the bucket in the early-going of the final quarter, and it wasn't until there were just two minutes remaining that Kaitlyn Goldman's put-back cut Red Bud's lead to one.
The Lady Royals had possession with under a minute to go and ran some clock before grabbing three huge offensive rebounds to maintain possession, and Jones fouled out with 14.3 seconds left in the game for PJHS's sixth team foul.
The Junior Panthers fouled immediately on the inbounds and sent Kara Puntriano to the line for the one-and-bonus. Puntriano made the first and missed the second, setting up one last chance for PJHS to tie or take the lead.
After in-bounding with 5.7 seconds left, Stein got a fairly good look in the lane, but her shot was just off and the rebound tumbled out of bounds as time expired.
Stein's 7 points led Pinckneyville, Goldman added 6, Stein and Raygan Yates each had 2. Taylor Fithian finished with a game-high 8 points for Red Bud.
<u>#204 boys down Steeleville</u>
Pinckneyville (District #204) improved to 21-2 on the season with a 63-27 defeat of Steeleville Grade School on Tuesday night behind another monster effort from Caleb "Lieutenant" Dahn.
Dahn scored 19 points and grabbed 7 rebounds for the Tigers, who also got 15 points from Layton McNew. Sam Simpson scored 8 points and Brian Taylor chipped in with 7 points and 4 assists.
The #204 Tigers take on Our Lady of Mt. Carmel (Herrin) on the road Thursday night.
<u>DMS boys scare undefeated Nashville</u>
by Patricia Ferrari, for the Du Quoin Evening Call
Coach Ryan Heape and the DMS Warriors knew it was going to be a tough task playing undefeated Nashville Middle School on Tuesday evening at Nashville. The DuQuoin Middle School team held Nashville to only 34 points during the game. DMS ended up losing the game 34-30, which is the closest that any team has played Nashville this season. Prior to this game, the closest was nine points.
DuQuoin was behind by only one point at the end of the first quarter 7-6. Nashville led at the half 18-10. After three, Nashville led 22-15, and then the final score was 34-30.
Jared Thomas led DuQuoin with 15 points. A. J. Smith had 7 points, Jacob Wright 3, Noah Campbell 2, Jacob Valier 2, and Nolan Showalter 1. Nashville's leading scorer was Newman, with 18 points.
One of the differences in the game was that DuQuoin was 4-7 at the free throw line, while Nashville was 15-21. DuQuoin's record is now 9-7 overall and 6-5 in the conference.
Coach Heape commented "that this is making us better. We are executing better. If the kids come together as a group, we can make a pretty good ball club. They need to look at these last four games as preparation for the regional. Our goal is to get better every game. Every ball player has to know failure before you can succeed. This was a good improvement from the last time we played Nashville. They beat us 49-29. Defensively, we have improved a bunch."
The seventh grade also lost, but that score was unavailable. DMS plays at home on Monday, January 24, with Trico.
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