Grace Christian, Cissna Park both fall in regional semifinals

MILFORD − It was a tough night Wednesday for a pair of area boys basketball teams at the IHSA Class 1A Milford Regional, whereoth Grace Christian and Cissna Park had their seasons come to an end with semifinal losses.

Grace Christian fell 52-36 to Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley, wrapping the best season for the program in a decade with a record of 15-13. Cissna Park mounted a furious comeback push in the second half against top seed Lexington, but came up just short in a 50-45 loss to end the season at 9-24.

Grace Christian has resurgent season come to an end

The 2024-25 season was the best for Grace Christian in quite some time.

The 15 wins were the most for the program since the 2014-15 season. This was also the fifth season for the program as members of the IHSA, and the 15 wins surpassed the total of 13 from their previous four seasons combined.

The Crusaders were coming off their first-ever IHSA postseason win in Monday’s regional quarterfinals against Milford, but the loss to Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley put an end their season.

“I’m just proud of them,” head coach Alan McGuirt said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve won 15 games, and I know how much they worked, how hard they worked and how much they’ve been in the gym. So it’s a bummer. Quite a few tears in there, but I’m super proud of them.”

Monday’s game saw the Crusaders take it on the chin a bit in the first quarter when the Falcons came out firing. Grace trailed 24-8 at the end of the first and 32-13 at halftime. The Crusaders outscored GCMS 23-20 in the second half with the early deficit proving too big to overcome.

We kind of laid an egg there at the beginning, let the hole get a little too big for us, and it was hard to get back out of it,” McGuirt said.

Sam Marquardt scored a game-high 15 points for the Crusaders. Ethan Reynolds added nine points and Noah Bisping had six.

These three were half of a six-player senior class that, along with Logan Erickson, Andre Betz and Caleb Davis, had their high school basketball careers come to an end.

“This is something that they get to take with them,“ McGuirt said. ”It’s been a long time since Grace has won this many games and they can be super proud of that.”

Comeback comes up short for Cissna Park team on the rise

Down 41-20 with about five minutes to go in the third quarter, it looked like 12 seed Cissna Park was in danger of getting blown out by top seed Lexington on Wednesday.

But after a 12-2 run from the Timberwolves to close out the third quarter and send them to the fourth down just 10 points, suddenly the game seemed winnable.

They kept cutting into Lexington’s lead until they trailed just 49-45 with just over two minutes left in the game. Despite some missed free-throws from Lexington down the stretch leaving the door open, Cissna Park would not score again in the 50-45 loss.

“We battled our tail off, we gave ourselves a chance, and that’s all you can ask for when you’re a 12 seed going against a one seed,” head coach Josh Marquez said. “We’re looking to be that one seed next year. We look to have these types of experiences to grow, and I think that’s what we accomplished tonight. I’m proud of them.”

Growth is something Cissna Park did a lot of this season. There are just three juniors and no seniors on the roster for the Timberwolves. Two of those juniors, Dierks Neukomm and Seth Walder, led the team with 20 points and 17 points respectively on Wednesday.

After heading into this season with a young roster and a new head coach, Marquez said the team is looking bounce back next year as an experienced group.

“I didn’t get hired until the middle of the summer,” Marquez said. “We only played three basketball games in the summer and we didn’t have a system until about a week and a half ago that we were really comfortable with. Now we get to have a whole summer to work on ourselves, know what we’re good at, know what we’re bad at, and we’re just going to come back locked in.”