By Steve Raymond

ET Sports Report

It’s not easy to win the Apollo Conference.

And Jeff Schafer should know. He’s been coaching against league teams for many years.

Since 2000, he has guided the Lady Hearts to 20 or more wins 15 times. Prior to this season, however, his teams had captured or shared a league title just five times.

At about 8:30 Thursday night, however, an update was necessary.

Effingham blitzed Mt. Zion the first five minutes of the game and never looked back, finishing with a 74-43 victory that put the Lady Hearts into a three-way for the Apollo Conference championship.

Effingham, along with Taylorville and Mahomet-Seymour will share the league crown with 8-2 records.

“We’ve had a lot of wins; a lot of 20-win seasons, but we don’t have many of these,” said Schafer. “This is our first one since 2018.

“It’s so hard to win the Apollo girls basketball conference,” Schafer added. “Anybody can beat anybody in this league.”

The league race was supposed to be between those same three teams. As it turned out, all three protected their home court, but lost on the road. Taylorville’s win over Mahomet-Seymour last Friday gave EHS the opportunity to gain a share of the title.

And they removed all suspense in the early minutes.

Averie Wolfe hit a short jumper and then converted a Mt. Zion turnover into a three-point play, staking the hosts to a 5-0 lead just 46 seconds into the game.

In the following 3½ minutes, Sidney Donaldson, Bella Austin, Alyssa Martin and Bria Beals all got into the scoring column. Over that same stretch, the Lady Braves missed their first seven shots and turned the ball over four times. With 2:52 to play in the opening period, EHS was comfortably ahead, 16-0.

By the end of the quarter, the Lady Hearts led 23-3.

“Our game plan was to run five set plays in a row at the beginning,” Schafer noted. “It was 12-0 before we even got our third set, which is a great sign. We wanted to play at a good pace and move the ball on offense, but we didn’t want to give them anything easy on defense. It couldn’t have been a better start for us.”

It was still a 20-point spread at halftime, thanks to the torrid shooting of Beals. The Lady Braves finally started making some shots, but Beals proved deadly from behind the arc. The senior sharpshooter went 4-for-4 from long range, helping the Lady Hearts maintain their lead.

It was 39-19 when the teams headed to the locker room at intermission.

“It’s always nice to hit shots,” Schafer admitted. “I thought we moved the ball really well. We made the extra pass when we should have, but we also took the shots when we should have. Nothing was forced. We had a nice flow to our offense.”

Effingham continued to expand its lead in the third quarter. Beals drilled two more threes and Tessa Raddatz added another, which capped an 8-0 surge and gave the Lady Hearts a 31-point cushion, 57-26, late in the period. It was a 57-30 score entering the final eight minutes.

It’s no secret the Lady Hearts have struggled with their shooting for much of the season. But the last two games have been a different story.

On Thursday night, they torched the nets, finishing with a 51 percent performance overall, making 26-of-51 attempts. They were 8-for-18 from three-point range and 14-for-20 at the foul line. They also held a large 29-16 rebounding advantage over a much taller Mt. Zion squad, with Donaldson and Austin both pulling down seven.

The Lady Hearts also featured a balanced scoring attack, placing four players in double figures. Beals, who went 8-for-11 overall and 6-for-9 from long range, led the way with 22 points. Donaldson scored 13, while Wolfe added 12 and Martin finished with 10.

Effingham played without Saige Althoff. The senior has some type of virus, and according to Coach Schafer, her availability for the rest of the season is questionable.

The Lady Hearts finished the regular season with a 23-7 record. They will now head to the postseason as the No. 3 seed in the Troy Triad Regional. They will face No. 5 Centralia at 7:30 p.m. Monday. The winner of that game will play for the regional championship at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

“It’s a tough regional, so we have to come ready to play and play consistently,” Schafer said. “I think there’s anywhere from five to six teams that could go on a deep run and I believe we’re one of those teams. If we play the way we’re capable of, I think we can beat just about anybody. We just have to worry about us.”