Girls basketball: Princeton adds two teams to Holiday Tournament

The Princeton Holiday Girls Basketball Tournament has taken on two new teams, adding St. Bede and Erie-Prophetstown to this year’s field.

With nine teams, the tournament will split into three pools of three teams each.

Princeton will play out of the Blue Pool with Putnam County and Streator.

The Gray Pool will be made up of Bureau Valley, Henry and Stark County.

The White Pool will consist of St. Bede, Midland and Erie-Prophetstown.

“I think it gives us some competition off the bat. Our first game is against Putnam County and they won the tournament last year. I know they girls are geared up for that one,” PHS coach Darcy Kepner said. “St. Bede and E-P will give us tough competition. Should be a fun one.”

Each team will play two pool games and then re-pool with the first place teams in the Blue, Gray, and White pools moving into the championship pool (Gold) and play two more games vs. the other schools in the Gold pool for first, second and third place.

The second-place teams in each pool will go into in the Silver Pool to decide fourth, fifth and sixth place and the third-place teams in each pool with go into the Bronze Pool to decide seventh, eighth and ninth place.

Opening night games on Monday, Nov. 14 will match St. Bede vs. Midland at 5 p.m., BV vs. Stark County at 6:30 p.m. and Princeton vs. PC at 8 p.m. The tournament run through Saturday, Nov. 19 with three games starting at 4 p.m.

Both Princeton and PC finished 4-0 last year, but did not meet in the modified round-robin format with PC crowned champions by virtue of the Free Throw Percentage tie-breaker.

Also new this year will be a F/S Tournament, which will be shared with Bureau Valley and Putnam County as co-hosts for games on Monday, Nov. 14, Tuesday, Nov. 15 and Thursday, Nov. 17.

Bureau Valley, E-P, Princeton and Stark County will play in the Bureau Valley Poll with PC, St. Bede, Streator and Midland all assigned to the PC Pool.

Princeton will host the finals round on Saturday, Nov. 19 with four games beginning at 9. a.m.