Here are this week's candidates for the Antonio's Pizza Prime Time Performer. You can vote once every 12 hours until the polls close on Friday at 5pm. The winner will receive a $20 gift card to Antonio's Pizza!
Daulton Nibbe (Plains Guard) Say what you will about Isaac Colllins hitting five three-pointers in the first quarter against Reed Custer, but if it weren’t for Nibbe, Plains would’ve been beat by 25 in the finale of the Riverton Shootout. Collins obviously played a huge role in getting Plains going, but Nibbe ran the show against a lengthy team that averages about 85 points a game, without senior point guard Cole Greer on the floor for 3 and a half quarters and Nibbe hit a buzzer beater to force overtime against the Reed Custer Comets. He finished Saturday with 14 points and six assists, but stats can’t describe what he did in the Riverton Shootout. On Friday night against Athens, the elder member of the basketball fro gang put up 11 points, four assists and four steals to get the Cardinals going in the first half.
Zak Merchant (Riverton Guard) The Hawks are still flying high at the top of the Sangamo standings. They took the weekend off from conference play to host the Shootout and put a stomping on St. Elmo in the process. Senior guard Zak Merchant got the Hawks started with 14 points in the first quarter…by himself, on his way to a game high 24 points. Merchant, paired with Ryan Roscetti, who led the Hawks in a big win over PORTA earlier in the week, makes a mean backcourt for any team to try and stop.
Jacquez Stewart & Terrion Taborn (Springfield High Wrestlers) At the Mahomet Seymour 2A sectional, two Senators returned home with championships. Stewart at 120 pounds and Taborn at 220 both wrestled their way into title matches on Saturday before winning the title in their respective weight classes. Four Springfield High wrestlers are headed to the State Farm Center in Champaign this weekend before the team competes for a sectional title next Tuesday. Watch for the freshman Stewart and the senior Taborn to be wrestling late on Saturday for a chance at more hardware.
Peyton Hudspeth (Auburn Wrestler) Hud's been in Prime Time Performer before, but he continues to win so he gets another nod. Auburn’s 195 pound wrestler won a sectional championship on Saturday in the 1A Carterville sectional with a win over Vandalia’s Bobby Bradley. Hudspeth has only lost a handful of matches this season and heading into the state tournament in Champaign, he’s certainly a favorite to land on the podium for the Trojans. Hudspeth will likely see Bradley again next Tuesday too, when their two teams face off in the 1A team sectionals.
Trey Hild (PORTA Wrestler) Hild has only dropped two matches this season and none of them came in the 1A Standford sectional. Hild picked up two wins by pins and then won the sectional championship match by major decision, as if we needed more proof of how dominate the 132 pounder has been all season as a sophomore. Yeah, he’s a sophomore, coming off a second place finish at state last year and has only lost twice this year. Prepare to see more from Hild this weekend at the State Farm Center all the way through Saturday night.
Harrison Creswell (Williamsville Forward) He finished Saturday night with 22 points, including a hammer dunk, against a very good Metro East Lutheran team. That’s not even the most impressive part though. Creswell went on a run to end the first half that included No. 25 scoring 16 straight points for the Bullets. The Knights couldn’t stop him in the Riverton shootout and neither could Pawnee on Friday night, when he put up 14 points in the Bullets’ 14 points win over the Indians.
Max Muller & Michael Curry (PORTA Forwards) One of the best scorers in the area has quickly become Max Muller from Petersburg and a complimently sniper of a shooter like Michael Curry is a way to make the Bluejays real dangerous next week for regional basketball time. PORTA put it on Auburn Friday night led by Muller’s 23 points while Curry threw in 11. In a quick turnaround for Saturday’s Riverton shootout, Muller and Curry came through again. Curry scored 18 and Muller had 17 to add another Bluejays win, this time over Eastland.
Brandon McCombs (Jacksonville Forward) Hitting a game winning bucket at the buzzer, at the Bowl, against a state ranked team gets you into the Prime Time Performer voting, no question about it. McCombs caught and hit with 0.6 on the clock to give the Crimsons a HUGE victory over Lanphier on Friday night. The junior big man scored a game high 20 points, including 16 in the second half and the final six for Jacksonville. McCombs stepped up big time and he has the Crimsons on a roll, beating Southeast and Jacksonville back to back Friday nights at the Bowl.
Parker Allen (Glenwood Guard) With Xavier Bishop in the CS8 this season, Allen isn’t likely a favorite for Central State Eight player of the year, but go ahead and put him at the top of the ballet for the 2016-2017 season. The junior guard scored 26 points against the Senators on Friday night on an impressive 11 for 13 from the floor including two three-pointers. Allen has shown the ability to get his own shot anytime he wants against some very good competition this season and his impressive performance at Springfield High kept Todd Blakeman’s bunch in the running for a CS8 title after Lanphier and Southeast both lost Friday.
Olivia Kaufmann (Jacksonville Guard) Another Kaufmann is in the Jacksonville High School record books. She needed just four points on Thursday night to move into first on the all time scoring list in girls basketball history at the high school. She got six points in the first two minutes of the game and went on to score 35 total against MacArthur to push her team to a senior night victory. A couple weeks ago, Kaufmann went over 2,000 points and now is just adding to her school record total in the final couple weeks of her high school career.
Montshianna Pulliam (Springfield High Forward) The Senators ended the Rochester girls Central State Eight winning streak at 36 on Thursday, thanks to Pulliam’s Prime Time Performance. The junior forward had ten points and six rebounds in the fourth quarter including the game winner and finished up with 15 points and 12 rebounds, both game highs. The battle inside was Pulliam against Rocket forward Angela Perry and the two certainly put on a show that resulted in Pulliam’s team coming out with the win. These two teams could meet in the postseason for round three so Rochester will have to figure out how to slow down Pulliam.
Xavier Bishop (Lanphier Guard) Rich McBride, Andre Iguodala, Marke Freeman, Ed Horton, Kevin Gamble are all sitting behind Xavier Bishop in Lanphier High School’s historic scoring standings. Bishop passed McBride’s 2,067 points on Tuesday by scoring 27 against Springfield High to move him into first place with 2,070 and then he added 17 to that total on Friday against Jacksonville. The Lion shooting guard has impressed us so many times in the past four years that we may not even realize the significance of this milestone for Bishop, but he deserves the credit. The kid can straight ball.
