Senior Spotlight: Blake Pruett

ST. ELMO – It was like he couldn’t miss, and he never imagined it happening that way.

Slowed by a sinus infection at the start of the St. Elmo Holiday Tournament, Eagles senior Blake Pruett never would have guessed that in the championship game he would score a career-high 24 points to earn tournament Most Valuable Player honors.

But sometimes, far-fetched thoughts become lasting memories.

Included in that memory for Pruett are six made field goals for 13 second-quarter points, a golden bobblehead trophy and a win over rival Altamont in front of a raucous crowd.

Nearly all of those second-quarter points came while Pruett was wide open because the Altamont defense pursued other Eagles players too aggressively.

“Every time I was open, (Altamont) didn’t seem to collapse too much,” Pruett said. “I was very surprised, to be perfectly honest.”

The standout performance upped his season scoring average by more than two points per game to 11, even though it was his fourth double-digit scoring performance in seven games.

And for that, Pruett can blame the sinus infection.

“It affected me enormously,” Pruett said. “Anyone who saw me could tell. It started last week against St. Anthony, when I had the worst game of my career.”

In that game, a 53-49 loss, Pruett did not score.

And that wasn’t a good feeling.

“He took that loss maybe harder than anybody,” said coach Greg Feezel. “That’s all right as long as he learned from it, and he showed me tonight that he did.”

Pruett, however, attributed much of the credit for his big night to his teammates.

While Pruett is the team’s point guard and is usually charged with distributing the ball, it was him who kept finding shots off of a teammate’s assist on Saturday.

“The shots were falling, and I was getting good passes,” he said. “We were all working pretty good, and we were all in a rhythm.”

Both he and Feezel acknowledged that point guard is not the ideal position for him to play, but that has not stopped Pruett from putting in as much time as possible to become the best point guard he can be.

“He started handling the ball late last year, and then he handled it all summer,” Feezel said. “He came back (this winter) with the mindset that he had to get the job done.

“I always tell him to be steady for me, and it’s working right now.”

Pruett was optimistic when asked about how far the Eagles can go through the postseason next March, but he did say it’s probably too early to be giving much serious thought to it.

Nonetheless, he will play every game the rest of the season as if it were a playoff game.  

“I have to work the ball around and play the point guard position the best that I can,” Pruett said. “It’s not really the position I would be in, but it’s whatever works best for the team to get a ‘W.’”

Pruett said he has not sought out any opportunities to continue playing basketball in college, but if the opportunity comes up, he would gladly accept a basketball scholarship.

Otherwise, he plans to attend Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville to pursue a degree in pharmacy.

But in the short-term, the focus is on yet another tournament.

“Getting a win over Altamont was the biggest thing,” Pruett said. “But we want to go to the Vandalia Holiday Tournament next week, and hopefully, we get a win there, too.”