STEELEVILLE – The Christopher Lady Cats (15-8) have won the 2016 Steeleville Class 1A Regional championship
The Lady Cats clinched this honor Thursday night with a 59-49 victory over the Webber Trojans in the finals of the Regional tourney. The last time the Christopher girls squad were Regional champs, all the way back in 1984, their current coach, Seiger Shurtz, had not yet been born.
With this championship victory, the Lady Cats capped off an incredible regular season turnaround. Midway through their season, Christopher was 6-8 and just hoping to finish somewhere over the .500 mark. Instead, the Christopher girls went on a nine game winning streak that pushed them to a second place finish in the Black Diamond Conference, where they wound up with a 7-3 record.
It was a back and forth game with Webber Township in the first half. Christopher escaped the first quarter with a slim 17-16 lead. It remained a nail-biter going into halftime, as the Lady Cats still clung to a one point lead at 29-28.
"You score 17 points in a quarter, that's not to bad," Shurtz said of the first quarter, adding what he wasn't happy with was giving up 16 to Webber. "Our defense kind of staggered along through that first half," Shurtz said, adding, "In the second half we started picking it up, and picking a little more energy up."
Christopher’s defensive pressure definitely increased in the second half, allowing them to move out to a 42-36 lead at the end of the third quarter. They stretched that out to a double digit lead to finish off the Trojans at 59-49 at the end of the fourth quarter.
Shurtz added, "Our running theme this year has been positive energy, and getting after people on defense. We're trying to make that our identity. We started doing a little bit of that (in the second half), and the score started to attest to it."
"In the last two minutes, it came down to free throws," Shurtz said. Autumn Gunter was a big part of those final minutes, and the overall victory, scoring 22 points total, and going 5-for-6 in free throws in the fourth quarter. Mattie Gossett also contributed 11 points to the Christopher cause, with Megan Wilson tacking on 8 points.
Shurtz said of his team, "We faced a little bit of adversity tonight. Some things weren't going our way through the course of the game. They never gave up."
Shurtz added that he was extremely proud of the way his girls played on the court. He also mentioned that this was the first time Christopher has had girls’ basketball as a standalone program in 27 years, which he agreed makes this accomplishment all the more impressive.
Before this season, the Christopher girls were consolidated with Zeigler-Royalton. With this win the Lady Cats advance to the Goreville Sectional on Monday at 7:30 p.m.
