The Christmas tournaments are all wrapped up for the 2025 holiday hoops season. Here’s a rundown of all the area tournament champions.

Boys tournaments

At Sherrard - Top-seeded Byron defeated No. 3 Peoria Notre Dame 56-55 on Kole Aken’s last-second 3-pointer to claim the championship of the Mike Hutchins Classic at Sherrard.

Aken then stole the inbounds pass to seal the Tigers’ victory.

Princeton notched its first win of the tournament in Tuesday’s finals, defeating Payson-Seymour 60-57 for seventh place. Sherrard placed third and Annawan was fifth.

At Princeville - Elmwood defeated Brimfield 44-34 to capture the 97th annual Princeville Holiday Tournament.

St. Bede took the consolation championship, defeating Ridgewood 66-28.

At Seneca - Indian Creek upended No. 1 seed and defending champ Lexington 56-53 for the championship of the third annual Shipyard Showdown.

Hall, the No. 2 seed, finished fourth, falling to No. 4 Marquette 55-40 in the third-place game.

At Plano - Top-seed Kaneland scored a 78-47 runaway championship victory to claim the 62nd annual Plano Christmas Classic crown.

L-P beat the host Reapers 74-65 for third place while Mendota edged Ottawa 46-45 for fifth.

At LaMoille - No. 7 seed Polo surprised top seed and defending champion Galva 56-39 in Wednesday’s finals of the 4th annual LaMoille Holiday Classic.

LaMoille beat Lowpoint-Washburn 50-49 for its first tournament win to take seventh place.

At Prophetstown - Newman beat Riverdale 79-73 for the title of the Warkins Tournament.

Girls tournament

At St. Bede - IVC swept the Lady Bruins Christmas Classic with a 4-0 record in the modified round-robin tournament. It was the Grey Ghosts’ first title at St. Bede since 2009, its sixth overall.

St. Bede went 3-1 to finish second, it’s only loss (59-51) to IVC.

At Prophetstown - Mercer County defeated Wethersfield 43-42 for the championship of the Warkins Tournament.

All-tournament time

Juniors Libby Endress of Bureau Valley and Caroline Morris of Hall were both selected to the all-tournament of the Warkins Tournament at Prophetstown. Each led their team to 3-1 finishes.

Hall senior Braden Curran was selected to the all-tournament team at the Shipyard Showdown at Seneca. He earned the same honors in Hall’s Colmone Classic.

The McClain sisters, Lili, a senior, and Parker, a sophomore, of St. Bede were named first team all-tournament of their own Lady Bruins Christmas Classic. Freshman teammate Hannah Heiberger was named honorable mention all-tournament along with Putnam County junior Kaylynn Hill.

Connor Deering was named to the all-tournament team in his own tournament at LaMoille along with Putnam County’s Traxton Mattingly.

BV, Hall coaches like Warkins format

The Hall and Bureau Valley girls both finished 3-1 at the Warkins Tournament at Prophetstown. It’s a unique format in that when teams are eliminated from championship contention after pool play, it turns into shootout style with crossover games against opponents you would not normally play.

Hall and BV each played Monmouth-Roseville and Stockton in crossover games, teams they don’t meet during the regular season. The Red Devils were pooled with Wethersfield (Lincoln Trail) and Rockridge (Three Rivers West) while the Storm were grouped with E-P and Morrison of the Three Rivers.

BV coach Jon Henegar and Hall counterpart TJ Orlandi like how the tournament is run.

“I like how they do this tournament over here. If you’re not in the top four, they try to match you up with teams who did similar in the tournament but also teams you don’t see too often,” Henegar said.

“Last year was our first year and they did the same thing,” Orlandi said. “It’s kind of nice. You’re not going to get matched up with somebody from conference or maybe somebody you might see in the regular season. Even in the pools they tried to avoid conference teams in the same pool.

“So it’s nice, we get to see a lot of teams we don’t normally see moving forward.”