St. Anthony over Arcola in Boys Regional

MOWEAQUA - For 371 days, a bad taste lingered in the mouth of the St. Anthony High School boys basketball program. 

Consider Friday night the ultimate palate cleanser.

St. Anthony limited Arcola to just 11 points in the second half of Friday’s Class 1A Central A&M Regional championship game, securing the title game by a 43-31 final and avenging a disappointing loss to the Purple Riders at the same stage of postseason play a season ago.

The game was heard on 979 XFM.

The top-seeded Bulldogs (29-4) didn’t pull away from No. 4 Arcola (24-8) until the third quarter, turning a 20-20 halftime deadlock into as much as an 11-point advantage and settling for a 36-28 lead heading into the final period … during which the Purple Riders managed nothing but a Tanner Thomas three-pointer in a 1-for-9 shooting stretch.

The Bulldogs managed just seven points themselves during that final stanza — all from the free throw line — but that was enough to get the job done.

Brock Fearday was St. Anthony’s leading scorer, dropping 15 mostly on an array of hotly contested jumpers that few of his contemporaries could knock down once … let alone several times. Still, it was Will Fearday’s eight third-quarter points — including a couple of threes — that propelled the Northsiders to a double-digit edge for the first time.

Will Fearday also spent most of the night guarding Thomas, who scored every single Arcola point after halftime yet still fell 10 points shy of his season average with a total of 14 on the night.

St. Anthony advances to the Red Hill Sectional where it will face Webber Township in a 7 p.m. Wednesday semifinal; the boys from Bluford knocked off Christ Our Rock Lutheran 80-60 to win their own regional on the heels of an undefeated run through the Midland Trail Conference.

If the Bulldogs could come out on top in that semifinal, it would match the state champion 2016-17 team for most victories in a season at 30.

As for the other side of the Red Hill Sectional bracket? It’ll feature another No. 1 seed from the National Trail Conference as Dieterich will take on No. 3 Tuscola in a Tuesday semifinal, leaving open the possibility of a third round of St. Anthony/Dieterich in the title game.

St. Anthony coach Cody Rincker celebrates an eighth regional title in his 12th season at the helm; the program was in the midst of a five-year sectional drought when he took the job and hasn’t missed that level of play in back-to-back seasons since.

Class 1A Central A&M Regional Championship

ST. ANTHONY (43)

Griffith 2-2 — 7, W. Fearday 3-0 — 8, Link 2-0 — 4, Schmidt 1-4 — 7, B. Fearday 6-1 — 15, Waldhoff 1-0 — 2. TOTALS 15-32 FG, 7-10 FT.

ARCOLA (31)

Wesch 2-0 — 6, Bra. Phillips 1-0 — 2, Thomas 5-0 — 14, Bro. Phillips 1-0 — 2, Roberts-McGeehon 2-1 — 7, Whisman 0-0 — 0. TOTALS 11-32 FG, 1-2 FT.

St. Anthony 10 10 16 7 — 43

Arcola 10 10  8 3 — 31

3-Point FG: St. Anthony 6 (Griffith, W. Fearday 2, Schmidt, B. Fearday 2), Arcola 8 (Wesch 2, Thomas 4, Roberts-McGeehon 2). Rebounds: St. Anthony 19 (Schmidt 7), Arcola 15 (Thomas 4, Bro. Phillips 4). Turnovers: St. Anthony 6, Arcola 10. Fouled Out: Arcola 1 (Bra. Phillips).