Brackets drawn for Centralia Invitational

November 19, 2009

By David Meyers of Centralia High School

The selection meeting for the 54th Annual Centralia Invitational Basketball Tournament was held Wednesday evening with last years tournament champion Macon Tigers boys and girls squads garnering the top spots in both brackets.  The tournament hosts Centralia boys earned the fourth seed, and Centralia girls are the 7th seed after losing 8 seniors from last years 22 win team.

Tournament play begins Monday, December 7th with the girls first round games beginning at 4:30, first round boys games are scheduled for Tuesday evening.  The tournament continues with girls semifinals on Wednesday, boys semifinals on Thursday, girls finals on Friday and concludes with the boys finals on Saturday.  The presentation of the all-tournament teams will be held immediately after the championship games.  Admission is $4 for adults and $3.00 for students.  First round action for the Centralia girls team begins against Salisbury on Monday evening at 7:30 pm, while the Centralia boys will tip off against Southern Boone on Tuesday at 9:00 pm.
 
The Macon Tigerettes return 8 of their top 10 players with varsity experience from last years 28-1 team that earned the top seed in this years tournament.  Second seeded Salisbury returns all state selection Cassie Nicolay and third seeded Southern Boone returns all district selection Tillie Bill  The rest of the girls field is untested at the varsity level, as most of the teams lost significant experience due to graduation.  Samantha Heck from North Callaway and Shelby Grindstaff from Hallsville are gone; and all five of the Centralia starting lineup has used up their eligibility.  While last years tournament champion was anybodys guess, look for the top two seeds to be playing at 8:00 Friday night.

On the boys side, returning varsity experience and a successful 2008 season was the common theme at last nights meeting.  Defending champ Macon returns 4 starters from a 20 win season and the second seeded Sturgeon Bulldogs 5 starters from their 20 win season a year ago.  Third seeded Paris, fourth seeded Centralia, fifth seeded Southern Boone, sixth seeded Salisbury and seventh seeded North Callaway all return at least 4 starters from 2008, only eighth seeded Hallsville had any significant losses due to graduation with the top seven Indians from a year ago having left the teepee.  While Macon, with the addition of a new point guard from Kirksville, appears to be the early favorite, look for any of the top 5 seeds to make some noise come the 2nd week of December.  The 2009 edition of the Centralia tournament should be a collection of some of the states best small school basketball talent - and one of the finest boys basketball tournaments in Mid-Missouri this season.

For a copy of the brackets, click on the heading under Recent Documents below.  There are two options, the bracket with .doc is an older version of excel, and should open on most computers.