Colmone Classic: Princeton repeats at Hall, defeats Pontiac

The Princeton Tigers defeated Pontiac, 62-57, Saturday night at Hall High School to repeat as Colmone Classsic champions.

SPRING VALLEY - Princeton found the Pontiac Indians to be a much tougher challenge for the Colmone Classic championship than they did two weeks ago at the Ottawa Thanksgiving Tournament when the Tigers won by 26 points.

The Indians led throughout nearly all of the first three quarters Saturday night at Hall High School and played the No. 3 ranked Tigers to a 53-53 tie with three minutes to go in the game.

Then Princeton senior Teegan Davis took over the game defensively.

He stole a Pontiac inbounds play and made 1 of 2 free throws with 21 seconds left to give the Tigers a 60-57 lead.

Then Davis made another steal and passed off to teammate Grady Thompson, who brought down the house with a break-away dunk to put away a 62-57 Tigers’ championship victory.

“No better way to put a team away than that,” Thompson said.

Davis knew he had to make those stops.

“End of the game, it’s a scramble. Everything’s put under a magnifying glass and it ended up going our way,” he said.

Thompson and Princeton coach Jason Smith were not surprised to see Davis make those kind of plays.

“He played great tonight. That was huge. He’s a big-time player and he makes big-time plays,” Thompson said. “I think our defense led to that win, because we did not have anything going on offensively.”

“How about that Teegan Davis? He’s just all over the place. Making plays all over the place, left and right, especially in the last 30 seconds,” Smith said. “He just took over the game. Big-time players make big-time plays and he did it tonight.”

Princeton's Teegan Davis makes his moves in the first half of Saturday's championship game of the Colmone Classic.

It was the second straight Colmone Classic championship for Princeton, which improved to 10-0 with the win.

“It’s a big accomplishment and we just got to keep moving on and have bigger visions the rest of the season,” Davis said.

Thompson said it was good for the Tigers to get pushed like this, because “down the road that will help us in game situations, I feel like. To have those kind of teams play us close, it’s a good thing.”

“To beat a state caliber team like Pontiac twice is nice and we knew they were going to give us their best shot,” Smith said. “We didn’t play our best ball by any means, but that has a lot to do with them, too. To come out and grind out a win like that, it felt like a regional-type win. It was a good experience for us.

“Hat’s off to the coaches at Pontiac and their players, because they played their tails off and we were just fortunate to come off with a win.”

Princeton didn’t take its first lead of the game until late in the third quarter when Thompson converted a 3-point play and scored on a drive for a 42-41 lead.

Pontiac, however, regained a 44-41 lead at quarter’s end on a 3-point buzzer-beater by Kerr Bauman.

The Tigers did not go ahead for good until a Noah LaPorte hoop put them up 55-53 with three minutes left to play.

Along with his defensive stops, Davis also found time to lead the Tigers in scoring with 20 points. Thompson had 19 points and Korte Lawson and LaPorte added 10 each.

Thompson was excited to claim tournament MVP honors for the second straight year, but his focus was on winning the championship again.

“I was more focused on the win. I’d rather win the tournament. If you don’t win the tournament, you can’t win the MVP, right?” he said.

Pontiac’s Kerr Bauman led all scorers with 24 points and teammate Riley Weber added 14.

Putnam County 47, Marquette 45: Jackson McDonald’s putback lifted the Panthers to victory in the third-place game. Tommy Durdan nearly won the game for the Crusaders with a 3-point shot at the buzzer that rimmed in and out.

McDonald led PC with 16 points and Austin Mattingly had 13.

Griffin Walker had 10 points for the Crusaders and Alex Graham had nine.

In other games Saturday

St. Bede beat Bureau Valley 70-58 for 11th place

Mendota beat Hall 59-42 for ninth place

Fieldcrest beat Rock Falls 64-61 for seventh place

Stillman Valley LaSalle-Peru 43-36 for fifth place