Tournament Champions

St. Elmo/Brownstown had a chance to make history Saturday night, and they did exactly that, defeating the Cumberland Pirates 74-61, marking the first time SEB has won the St. Elmo Holiday Tournament since Brownstown and St. Elmo agreed to co-op in all sports in 2013.
“It means a lot. I’m pretty positive this is the first one as a co-op, which is good. We have a great mix of Brownstown and St. Elmo kids and they get along great,” SEB head coach Greg Feezel said. “It’s pretty special to win that first one for the two school systems, which has been working out fine. It was just a nice night for us.”
The Eagles continued the same trend they had in their first two tournament games, coming out to a dominant first half start.  
Senior center Kyle Hardimon capped off an 11-1 start for the Eagles, sinking a basket with a nifty post move. Landon Feezel followed with his second and third three-pointers of the quarter to give SEB a 17-4 lead a little more than halfway through the first.
Sophomore Lewis Brown continued the momentum with three consecutive steals, leading to two layups and a free throw to extend the lead to 22-6.
Hardimon and Brown followed with two more layups to close out the Eagles first-quarter offense. Cumberland answered with four points to close out the first, trailing 26-10.
The top-seeded Pirates managed a little more offensive success in the second quarter, but the Eagles followed suit.  Cumberland senior Gunnar McMechan kept his team in the game with his third three-pointer of the quarter, cutting SEB’s lead to 39-28.  McMechan led all the scorers in the first half with 17 points.
Dylan Brooks countered with a runner to close out the first half for the Eagles, leading 41-28.
“We came out of the gate fast. I like that, but you don’t know that, as well coached as Cumberland is, they are not going to fall over,” Feezel said. “He (Cumberland head coach Justin Roedl) brought out all of his starters and made them talk a little bit and here they come back. The start was good for us. We were excited; we were pumped up and we just kind of need to remember to come out of the locker room for the third quarter like that.”
Cumberland came out to quick start in the third quarter, as a three-pointer from Ryan Green cut the Eagle's lead to 41-33.
The Eagles attempted to pull away, taking a 10-point lead following a pair of free throws from Feezel halfway through the quarter.
However, the Pirates would not let that happen, closing out the third quarter on a 10-6 run to cut their deficit to 51-45 going into the fourth quarter.
A pair of mid-range jumpers from Klayton Kroll and Feezel opened up the fourth quarter for the Eagles, but a pair of free throws from Tyson Magee kept the Pirates within six.
Cumberland center Brandon Thaon looked to cut the lead to only four points with a layup in transition, but the much-smaller Brown came up with a huge hustle play, blocking the attempt as he came flying from behind.  The 5 foot, 9-inch guard finished the game with a team-high three blocks.
“Lewis is a sophomore. We are letting him grow up in the lower levels and that’s showing,” Feezel said. “He’s spotting in playing a lot here for us and we had an injury to Noah. We had to protect him some. Lewis played a nice ball game. “
However, Cumberland would cut the lead to four points on its next possession with a layup by Magee with a little more than four minutes left to play.
With the Pirates closing in, Feezel came up with arguably the biggest turning point of the game.  The junior forward snagged an offensive rebound off a missed free throw and quickly followed with a successful put-back, drawing a foul in the process. A successful and-one conversion gave the Eagles a 65-55 lead with less than three minutes to play. 
From there, SEB was able to stable the Cumberland offense en route to a 74-61 victory.
Feezel finished the game with a team-high 23 points on 3-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc and 8-of-9 from the foul line.  He also added four rebounds, one assist and one steal, earning him MVP honors for the tournament. 
“(I’m) Just pretty proud of him, but It’s still a team effort,” Feezel said. 
Other contributors in the championship effort for SEB were Hardimon, with 17 points, a team-high 11 rebounds and two blocks; Trey Pasley, with 11 points and four rebounds; Dylan Brooks, with eight points, four rebounds, a team-high six assists and one steal; Brown, with eight points, three rebounds, three assists, four steals and three blocks; Kroll with five points, four rebounds, four assists, two steals and one block; and Noah Flowers, with two points and three rebounds.
SEB improved to 6-1 with the victory. It will look to carry its momentum into the Vandalia Holiday Tournament Saturday morning with a tough matchup against Flora.
“This is what you want, but now what we do with it, I don’t know. We will see how we show up on the 26th,” Feezel said. “We have a big assignment at 9:30 in the morning with Flora. We’re 6-1. That’s a good thing; these guys are happy, that’s a good thing; and these guys are playing together, that’s a good thing. They are kind of brothers and that’s how you have to do it in sports. We have been preaching it and they're getting it so we will see how things fall in Vandalia.”

The 56th annual St. Elmo Holiday Tournament champion, St. Elmo/Brownstown, is pictured above. SEB defeated Cumberland, 74-61, in the championship game Saturday night.

Landon Feezel (32) fires a shot over Cumberland’s Tyson Magee.

Members of the St. Elmo Holiday All-Tournament teams are pictured left. From left to right, are SEB’s Landon Feezel, all-tournament MV