Basketball season is around the corner

Millie Lange
Effingham Daily News

November 04, 2009 12:40 am

— It's November and time to start thinking about high school basketball. The girls' practices are already underway and the boys will open practice next Monday.
It's that time of year when I start turning pale and Dustin starts babbling. Alright, maybe it's not that bad. I began making phone calls Tuesday to set up photo sessions for the basketball teams. Dustin and I will hit the road with cameras in hand starting next week.
I also mumbled the same thing over and over as high school secretaries got tired of hearing me. 'Hi, this is Millie at the Effingham Daily News. Could you fax me a copy of your boys and girls basketball schedules?'
Those started rolling in and folks around the Daily News begin giving the sports department the evil eye as they hear the fax machine go off, walk to it and guess what . . . it's a sports schedule.
Next on the agenda will be the stories as each coach in the area . . . 21 boys coaches and 15 girls coaches . . . will hear Dustin's voice or my voice asking questions about their teams. Our basketball section will be inserted into the paper, Friday, Nov. 27.
Of course by then we'll have already been to several girls and boys games.
That brings up the Effingham St. Anthony High School Boys Turkey Tournament. The schedule arrived on my desk Tuesday and it's almost the same as last years. That's because the pool drawings were the same.
In Pool A are Effingham, St. Anthony, Taylorville and Vandalia. In Pool B are Breese Central, Charleston, Flora and Mattoon. The tournament opens Nov. 23 and finishes Nov. 28.
The tourney begins Monday, Nov. 23 with Charleston facing Flora at 6:30 p.m. Effingham takes on Vandalia at 8. Tuesday's games find Mattoon against Breese Central at 5 p.m. followed by Effingham meeting Taylorville at 6:30 and St. Anthony taking on Vandalia at 8.
In Wednesday's games, Flora meets Breese Central at 5 p.m., Mattoon takes on Charleston at 6:30 and St. Anthony faces Taylorville at 8. Play skips Thursday since that day is Thanksgiving. Friday's games will find Breese Central against Charleston at 3 p.m., Flora taking on Mattoon at 4:30, Taylorville against Vandalia at 6 and St. Anthony and Effingham squaring off at 7:30.
The tournament comes to a close Saturday with the pool number 4's meeting at 3 p.m., pool number 3's at 4:30, pool number 2's at 6 and pool number 1's at 7:30.
Admission to the event will be $4 for adults and $2 for students. All session passes will be for sale the first night for $15.
Breese Central won last year's tournament by defeating St. Anthony in the title contest 58-44. The third place game went to Mattoon over Effingham 50-43. Charleston won fifth place by beating Taylorville 50-40 and seventh place went to Vandalia over Flora 58-47.
The girls start the basketball season before the boys do. St. Anthony will travel to Newton for its first game Thursday, Nov. 19 and then take part in the National Trail Conference Tournament Nov. 20-28.
Effingham's girls begin play in the Newton Thanksgiving Tournament which is scheduled to begin Monday, Nov. 23 and run Nov. 24, 27 and 28. The Hearts regular season opens Tuesday, Dec. 1 with a home game against Newton.
So be on the lookout for basketball. And don't forget wrestling. The high school season begins the week of Thanksgiving for most area wrestling teams.
Millie Lange can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 124 or millie.lange@effinghamdailynews.com.