Chester takes second in tournament
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Yellow Jackets had a great week as hosts of the 50th annual Chester Invitational Tournament. They pulled off two big upsets in the opening and semifinal rounds, which put them in the top two teams for the first time since 2005. One more win would have given Chester their first tournament title since 1976, but the Yellow Jackets fell just short of that goal despite a great effort.
In the first round Chester destroyed third ranked Marissa-Coulterville by a score of 61-26. The Yellow Jackets opened and finished strong, outscoring the Meteors 17-4 in the first quarter and 13-0 in the last quarter. Matthew Heberlie and Chris Schwartz led a balanced scoring attack with 12 points each while Kyle Landon put in 10, Caleb Arbeiter had nine, Link Cushman scored seven, Cody Mileur had five and Jacob Lochhead, Alec Weir and Greg Rowald added two apiece. Joey Smith was the leading scorer for the Meteors with 13 points.
In the second round Chester outlasted Saxony Lutheran, the second seed in the tournament, by a score of 60-53 in overtime. The Crusaders took a 12-8 lead after the first period, but the Yellow Jackets came back to go up by one at halftime. Chester's lead increased to three after three quarters, but Saxony Lutheran rallied in a low-scoring fourth quarter to tie the contest. Chester had the ball for some time in the waning moments, but never could find an opening for a good shot. In the end, that didn't matter as the Yellow Jackets dominated the overtime period. They scored the first six points and held on for the big win. Offensive totals in this game were Schwartz with 18 points, Landon and Heberlie with 11 each, Mileur with eight, Cushman with five, Lochhead with three and Arbeiter and Rowald with two apiece. Clayton Carver led the Crusaders with 17 points.
In the final game on Saturday Chester faced Perryville, the defending champion and top seed. Both teams came out fired up and playing some aggressive defense, resulting in few points in the opening minutes. When Perryville finally broke through and took a 14-5 lead, it looked like it might be a long night for the Yellow Jackets. Chester never led in this contest but they never gave up, either. They rallied to within one point at 17-16 and to within three or four points on several occasions. The Pirates finally put the game out of reach when they opened the fourth quarter with a 10-2 run.
Arbeiter hit some key outside shots to finish with 16 points, Landon and Schwartz scored eight each, Heberlie had six and Mileur added four. Jared Thieret was the leading scorer for the Pirates with 15 points. Perryville's center Jake Dobbelare was also a difficult force to deal with inside as he finished with 12 points.