Why two of the state's top girls basketball teams canceled their anticipated rematch
There will be no regular-season rematch between two of the state's top-ranked girls basketball teams.
Peoria High and Lincoln have called off their nonconference game originally scheduled for Jan. 20. The programs agreed that if they met at the Manual Holiday Tournament, they would cancel their nonconference game. They then met in the Dec. 29 MHT title game won by then-second-ranked Lincoln over No. 1 Peoria High, 57-25. The Lions, now No. 2, didn't make a field goal in the second half of the loss to current No. 1 Lincoln (20-0).
“We kind of had an unwritten agreement,” Peoria High athletics director Brien Dunphy said, “when we saw that they were returning to Manual, that if we did happen to meet them in that tournament, that we would talk about canceling the second game.”
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The release of the postseason assignments revealed Peoria High and Lincoln were playing in the same sub-sectional and would be favored to meet in the postseason. “I think that kind of contributed to it as well,” Dunphy said.
Peoria High loves being a participant in the Manual tournament, according to Dunphy, but the Lions often play the same teams during the regular season. Last season, Limestone, Dunlap and Peoria Notre Dame were overlapping Peoria High foes both during the regular season, then again at Manual.
“(Lincoln AD) Neil (Alexander) and I and our coaches agreed,” Dunphy said, “that if we were going to put it on the court in December, we didn’t need to do it a couple weeks later.”
Is there a replacement game in the works?
“I don’t think we’re going to,” Dunphy said. “I think we’re pretty satisfied with a really tough schedule as it is. A Saturday of rest at that time of the year is probably much more beneficial.”
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Another contributing factor was playing in a trio of state-ranked games during an eight-day span. That Lincoln game would have been sandwiched between two Big 12 Conference games — vs. Class 2A No. 3 Peoria Notre Dame (19-3) on Jan. 18 and then at Class 4A fourth-ranked Normal Community (18-2) on Jan. 26.
Peoria High (16-1, 4-0) returns to the court Thursday with a trip to Richwoods (16-5, 4-1) for a Big 12 contest.
“Taking that (Lincoln) game out of that stretch is probably good AD-ing,” Dunphy said.
Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: IHSA basketball: Peoria High, Lincoln girls cancel Jan. 20 game
