That golden feeling: SHG wins City Tournament outright for first time since 1973

The last time Springfield’s largest parochial school captured the City Tournament title, none of the basketball players were born.

Heck, neither were many of the parents.

It was a long time coming for Sacred Heart-Griffin, which captured the outright trophy for the first time since 1973 with a 65-48 win over Lanphier on the Jim Belz Gymnasium floor on Tuesday.

“Oh, man, it's just an unbelievable feeling,” SHG coach Tim Allen said. “I have to take my coach hat off and just be happy because usually I'm like, 'Well, we could have did this. We could have done that.’

“But I'm just happy. Our guys, in the fourth quarter, they executed amazing. I mean, we were down one going into the fourth quarter. And to come out like that, which is amazing.”

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SHG (21-2 overall, 13-0 Central State Eight Conference, 3-0 City) outscored Lanphier 29-11 in the final period. Junior Jake Hamilton scored 12 of his game-high 23 points over the final eight minutes.

“Yeah, I think the biggest thing for us in the program is just setting the tradition that, like, we're a part of the city and we can win this, of course,” Hamilton said. “I mean, (49) years, that's a really long time. But you know, we did it tonight. And that just shows for kids that want to come play for us, that's just how we are now. That's our tradition. That's our new tradition.”

It came one day after the same school beat Lanphier 60-38 to win the girls City Tournament with an identical 3-0 record.

SHG — nor its Sacred Heart (girls) and Griffin (boys) predecessors — have both held the outright city crowns at the same time. The girls City Tournament began in 1973. Between the boys’ outright wins, the Cyclones tied six times, including with Lanphier in 2020. The title has been held either outright by the girls and boys or in a two- or three-team tie concurrently in 1981, ‘82 and 2020.

For some, it may not have felt like a City Tournament game. Instead of being held on the Bank of Springfield Center floor, SHG’s finale with No. 2 seed Lanphier was moved from last week to Tuesday because Lanphier was in COVID-19 protocols last week. But SHG’s J’veon Bardwell said he was glad to do it on his home floor.

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“It's always nice in the Belz,” Bardwell said. “Jim Belz Gymnasium: I love playing here. I love it here.

“This gym was packed. Especially since it’s smaller, you get to really see everybody that's here. It was awesome.”

Hamilton led SHG with 23 points on 10-of-19 shooting, while Zack Hawkinson finished with a 20-point, 10-rebound double-double.

It was SHG’s win No. 21 in a row since the Cyclones dropped the first two game of the season. And that came on the same weekend of the SHG football team’s Class 4A runner-up finish, which included key cogs Hamilton, Keshon Singleton, J’veon Bardwell, Ty Lott and Richard Jackson.

But on Tuesday, Lanphier (9-9 overall, 3-6 CS8, 0-1 City) gave SHG all it could handle for three quarters.

SHG tried to pull away in the third quarter when it opened the second half on a 10-0 run to take a 34-25 lead. But the Lions responded with a 12-0 run of its own with points coming from five different players in that span — Devion Brady, Cam Kincaid, Tye Banks, Randy Rice Jr., and Cam Davis.

Lanphier wouldn’t be able to stop SHG’s next wave, which began on a Hamilton transition layup in the closing seconds of the third and continued for the first 2 ½ minutes of the fourth quarter.

Blake Turner called his fourth of five timeouts right after Kincaid hit a 3 to momentarily half SHG’s run with 5 minutes, 12 seconds left. After Hamilton converted a three-point play, Lanphier’s JaiQuan Holman slipped and Turner had to use his final timeout to prevent a turnover with 4:19 left. It turned into a Banks putback basket to keep SHG within five, but SHG closed out the tournament by outscoring Lanphier 18-6.

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“I thought that our kids played great, I thought that our kids played hard,” Lanphier coach Blake Turner said. “For three quarters, I thought we did a tremendous job. SHG, they're a good team, they made a couple of shots and got on a little run in the fourth quarter.

“And then I think we had a couple of bad possessions, and then we started playing chase a little bit, and you don't, you know, you don't want to play chase in a game like this.”

SHG outscored Lanphier 44-28 in the paint and beat the Lions on the glass with a 40-25 rebounding edge.

“Hats off to Blake and what he does. You know, I'm watching Blake and LT (Southeast coach Lawrence Thomas) celebrate (winning City) so many times, he can give me one celebration,” Allen said laughing.

Banks led Lanphier with 20 points and six rebounds while Kincaid finished with 10 points.

SHG shot 50% (25-of-50) and held Lanphier to 35.2% (19-of-54).

Contact Ryan Mahan: 857-246-9756, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: City Tournament basketball: SHG stands alone for first time since 1973