About 3 1/2 hours after the Maroons were finally out of their gear and recovering from a physical game with East St Louis in the morning, the Maroons were back at it again to tip in the 5th place bracket at the Pekin Tournament against Normal West late Thursday afternoon. The Wildcats, themselves, were coming off a blowout loss to 3A #1 Mt Carmel and were wanting to bounce back. In a game that was back and forth and saw the Wildcats hit 9 3s (including 6 in the 3rd quarter), the Maroons (12-2) survived and rallied from down 6 in the 4th to get a much needed bounce back win 54-49.
One name was familiar in the scoring column, Trey Taylor. He was, in a word, awesome. Another career high of 29 points on 13-18 FG to go along with 4 rebounds, and Taylor did all that while not playing a single second in the second quarter. “Trey Taylor continues to get better and better every game,” said Moline Head Coach Sean Taylor. “In a close game like this was unbelievable.” Sean even jokingly said on the postgame show to us, “I don’t know who your player of the game is but if it wasn’t him you guys are watching something different than me.” While Taylor (as well as Braden Freeman) was sitting the 2nd quarter the Maroons deployed a unit spearheaded by their 2 freshmen Arthur Abbey and Brady Welch. They each poured in 9 points on a combined 6-10 shooting and Welch hit three shots from deep. “…we had numerous guys step up. Today Brady Welch comes in and makes three big 3’s, Arthur makes a contribution on defense…our two freshmen really helped us in this game.” Sean Taylor was thrilled how those two played, as well as some others as the Maroons stemmed the tide in the 2nd frame. “I thought (the freshmen) were doing a really good job…not only those two but Aiden Versluis did a great job.”
The Maroons took a lead going into half only giving up 4 points in the 2nd quarter, but they had to rally after the huge 3rd quarter on offense from Normal West. “We are in man and they made 6 3’s in the 3rd quarter, it’s why you have to be offensive too. There’s a lot of good offensive players out there…we did a pretty good job of taking their run…We did a good job in the 4th quarter of getting the ball to the foul line with either Trey or Braden and then attacking the rim,” Taylor said. In the 4th the Maroons took control and got enough stops late. Taylor had 10 in the 4th to finish off his dominant performance. Moline will now take on Peoria Notre Dame for 5th place in the tournament. You can hear it live on qcsportsnet.com beginning at 12:15 p.m. Friday with the Crawford Company pregame show.