Carlinville Boys Basketball: Welcome

Welcome to the online home of Carlinville High School Boys Basketball. This website is intended to help promote CHS Basketball and those student-athletes involved in the program. If you have suggestions for the website, please drop me an e-mail at timtarter@live.com.

Members of the 2011-12 Carlinville boys' basketball team are front row, from left, Tyler Siegel, Kyle Kleeman, Tyler Leefers, Luke Davis, Ben Butcher and Kyle Bort; back row, assistant coach Andrew Noble, Brennan Hurley, Adelmo Marchiori, Jake Pohlman, Barry Stewart, Sean McCaherty and head coach Alan Cooper.

ROXANA — Roxana’s Hunter Reine scored 31 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, helping the Shells to a 63-46 home victory over Carlinville Friday night.

Reine is 12 points away from setting the school record for career points, which is held by Ross Cherepkai at 1,409 points. Coincidentally, Reine also scored 31 points last season when he broke the 1,000-point barrier against Hillsboro.

“Since I was a freshman, I’ve been working on that, but it’s not that big a deal now,” Reine said. “I had no idea about it. I didn’t even know about my 1,000 points. I didn’t know about this until right now. I didn’t even know what the record was.”

He knows now, and in all likelihood, Reine will set the record when the Shells play Okawville next Feb. 4 at Nashville.

“In less than three years - that’s amazing when you think about it,” Roxana coach Mark Briggs said.

The Shells (18-6, 7-2), who remained two games behind the Explorers on the loss side in the SCC West race, have won nine of 10 and 14 of their last 17 games.

It was another case of spread the wealth Friday against the Cavaliers (8-14, 2-8), and for Roxana, which held a definite size advantage against Carlinville, using that as a strength was pivotal.

“Our strength is our post and we have a pretty good way of getting the ball inside,” Briggs said. “We’ve done a nice job of that the last 10, 11 games.”

When the Shells played up in Carlinville, they won 44-32, but Reine was limited to 13 points because the Cavaliers were able to keep the 6-foot-8, 208-pounder away from the basket. That was not the case in this game.

“The first time around, we were able to push and shove on him,” first-year Cavs coach Alan Cooper said of Reine. “Tonight, they didn’t allow us (to do that) at all. ... If you can’t get him out of there, it’s kind of hard to stop with a couple six-footers.”

Briggs added: “We’re a lot better basketball team than we were then. The chemistry’s better, the team works better. Schematically, we’ve changed a lot with our team and we’re going a little more with our strength. We learned a little bit about ourselves early in the year.”

Reine, who sat most of the second quarter after picking up his third foul, had quarters of 11, zero, 12 and eight. He was 15 of 20 from the floor.

“I’ve been working on spinning and posting up better,” Reine said. “Coaches have really been working on that with me. It was demonstrated out there.”

The game was still within reach for the Cavaliers, who got 12 points from junior Kyle Kleeman, after halftime despite the Shells scoring the game’s first 11 points. It was only a nine-point game at the half (28-19), but the Shells used a 9-0 run that took the lead from seven to 16 at 37-21.

“Defensively, I thought we over-extended ourselves in the first half,” Briggs said. “We talked at halftime about just getting off the guy a little bit, making them earn a little bit more. We weren’t getting beat off the dribble. ... Playing a little more sound and not getting out there and gambling, I think that was the difference.”

Since the Shells lost to Marquette Dec. 20, they’ve gone 11-2 and have won their games by an average of 16 points per game.

“Teamwork and defense has gotten a lot better,” Reine said. “We’ve gotten a lot better since then.

“I don’t want to sound big, but we’re very confident right now. We’re out to get that 20 wins, too.”

By Daniel Winningham
Macoupin County Enquirer~Democrat

Carlinville High School boys’ basketball team outscored visiting East Alton-Wood River in three of four quarters on its way to a 60-41 win at the CHS gym, snapping a seven-game losing streak.

“It was nice to get back on the winning side of things,” said CHS coach Alan Cooper after the game, adding the team played a consistent game.

Adelmo Marchiori finished the contest with 13 points and led four CHS players in double digits. Both Luke Davis and Kyle Kleeman scored 12 points, and Jake Pohlman added 10. Starter Ben Butcher made four field goals to end the evening with eight points.

The Cavaliers led 12-5 after the first quarter and used a 20-point second quarter to pull in front 32-18 at halftime.

The win is Carlinville’s first in five weeks – since a Dec. 27 victory over Raymond-Lincolnwood on the second day of the Carlinville Holiday Tournament – though the team had a couple close calls during the seven-game skid, losing to Staunton in overtime and falling to Bunker Hill by two points earlier this month in County Tournament action.

Cooper said it was nice to see balanced scoring effort from the Cavaliers in Tuesday’s win.

Tyler Leefers recorded a team-high four assists against the Oilers. Barry Stewart and Pohlman both finished the game with three assists.

Carlinville improved to 7-14 on the season and is now 2-6 in South Central Conference competition. EA-WR fell to 0-19.

The Cavaliers looked as if they would run away from the Oilers early, building a 10-3 edge in the first quarter. EA-WR attempted to slow down the CHS momentum, calling timeouts after baskets put the Cavaliers up 15-5 and 17-5 in the second quarter.

Carlinville started the second quarter on a 9-1 run to make it 21-6 and then increased the advantage to 32-15, its largest lead of the opening half, on free throws from Pohlman with 34.4 seconds left in the second quarter.

Marchiori and Davis both tallied eight points each in the first half for CHS.

Neither team scored more than two consecutive baskets in the third quarter as the Oilers outscored the Cavaliers 14-12 to cut the lead to 44-32 heading into the final quarter. Carlinville missed all five of its free throw attempts in the third quarter while EA-WR misfired on three of six from the line.

“We had some let downs,” Cooper said of his team’s second half play. “It appeared we were content being up 13 or 15 instead of working on getting stops. I thought we forced shots in third quarter. That gave them the ball back quickly instead of giving us longer offensive possessions to use up more time.”

EA-WR scored six straight in the early going of the fourth quarter to get within 46-38 with 5:59 to go. CHS responded with an 11-0 run to make it 57-38 to put the game out of reach.

“Finish our free throws, take care of the game at the line,” Cooper encouraged his team prior to Marchiori stepped to the line midway through the fourth quarter.

During the final quarter, CHS connected on six of nine attempts from the free throw line.

After a basket from EA-WR made it 57-40 with about 90 seconds left, with the game well in hand, Cooper emptied his bench, giving several reserves a chance to see game action.

CHS made 14 of 27 free throws while East Alton hit on just seven of 19 from the charity stripe.

The contest with the Oilers began a stretch of four games in five nights for CHS.

“As a player you love that,” Cooper said. “We could win our next three.”

Cooper also admitted it could be a “tough weekend for us.”

94th Annual

Macoupin County Tournament

Hosted by Mt. Olive High School