By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
When the Effingham Lady Hearts take the floor to open their 2021-22 basketball season, they will do so without their two leading scorers from a year ago.
Annie Frost moved to Florida and Taylor Armstrong is now playing at Millikin University.
But veteran coach Jeff Schafer is still excited about the season ahead.
“This is my kind of team,” he said.
Together, Frost, an all-conference selection, and Armstrong combined to average 20 points a game – points this year’s squad will need to replace.
“When you lose players like that, you’re always afraid your team will go backwards. But that’s not happening here,” Schafer noted. “Yes, we will have to learn to play without our leading scorers. And, yes, I thought scoring points might be a problem.
“But I don’t think that will be the case,” Schafer added. “We didn’t have any trouble scoring points this summer. The girls stepped up and scored well. I guess we’ll just have to see how we do when the season gets going.”
Schafer has encountered just about every scenario possible during his coaching career. He is entering his 24th season as the EHS head coach and has amassed 428 wins during that time. But he never experienced anything like last year.
Thanks to COVID, that was a different experience altogether. The Lady Hearts played a shortened season in gyms that were virtually empty – all while wearing masks.
“There was definitely a lack of excitement in the gyms,” Shafer recalled. “You had to create all the energy from your own team’s bench. Hopefully, we won’t have to go through that again. I think we’re all looking forward to a more normal season this year.”
Right now, he likes what he’s seeing from this year’s team.
“They have great cohesiveness and chemistry. This is a very close-knit group,” Schafer said. “And that all started forming last year. I think they learned not to take anything for granted.”
Speed and athleticism describe many of this year’s Lady Hearts. Effingham also figures to be a good passing team with balanced scoring.
“I will never have to worry about them playing hard or sharing the ball,” Schafer noted. “Everybody just seemed to take a progressive step forward since last year.”
The Apollo Conference has released its boys all-conference basketball team for the 2021 season.
Effingham’s Parker Wolfe and Nate Thompson, and T-Town’s Evan Wermert were among the six players selected to the first team.
The Hearts’ Jacob Stoneburner was selected to the second team as was Jordan Hardiek, from Teutopolis.
Wolfe averaged a team-high 25.8 points and 5 rebounds per game for Effingham. He had 38 assists and led the team with 63 steals. He shot 45.6 percent overall, making 146 of 320 shots. He shot 78 percent from the foul line, making 87-of-112 attempts.
Thompson averaged 20.1 points per game and led the team in rebounding, pulling down 154, an average of 9.12 per game. He had 25 assists and 29 steals. He made 128-of-248 total shots, a 51.6 percent clip, which was tops on the team. He also was the team’s best free throw shooter, making 72-of-90 attempts, an 80 percent clip.
Wermert also had an impressive year for the Wooden Shoes. He averaged a team-high 19.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. He had 55 assists and 30 steals. He shot 55 percent overall, making 142-of-256 attempts. That included shooting 48 percent from three-point range, making 50-of-105 attempts. He also shot 86 percent from the foul line, making 42-of-49.
Stoneburner led Effingham with 50 assists and shot a team-high 69.4 percent from two-point range during the season. He averaged 6.8 points and 6.3 rebounds. Overall, he made 48-of-99 attempts, a 48.5 percent clip. From two-point range, he made 34-of-49 shots. He also had 21 steals.
Hardiek averaged 12.5 points per game for T-Town. He led the team with 51 three-pointers for the season. Overall, he shot 43 percent for the season, making 83-of-193 attempts. That included going 51-for-133 from behind the arc. He shot 77 percent from the free throw line, making 20-of-26 foul shots. He also had 35 assists and averaged 3.2 rebounds per game.
Here is the complete list of the All-Apollo Boys Basketball Team.
First Team – Parker Wolfe (Effingham); Nate Thompson (Effingham); Evan Wermert (Teutopolis); Dylan Singleton (Lincoln); Landon Hullinger (Lincoln); and Eli Warren (Mahomet-Seymour)
Second Team – Jacob Stoneburner (Effingham); Jordan Hardiek (Teutopolis); Cam’ron Thomas (Mattoon); and Wyatt Shirley (Taylorville)
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
It was quite a night for Nate Thompson.
He equaled his career-high for rebounds, he set a new career-high for points and he became the 14th player at Effingham High School to join the 1,000 Point Club.
And by the way, the Hearts posted their 16th victory of the season, finishing with a 78-65 victory at home over Mattoon on Senior Night.
Thompson entered Friday night’s contest with 974 points – just 26 points away from the coveted achievement. With that game, plus Saturday’s game with Charleston, most figured the 6’6” senior forward had a very good chance to get there.
Thompson, however, decided not to wait and just get the job done.
He had 18 points in the first half, and then with 2:26 to play in the third period, he grabbed a rebound and scored a basket that not only put the Hearts up by double-digits, it gave him 27 points for the game and officially put him over the 1,000-point plateau.
He finished the game with an impressive 36-point, 18-rebound double-double performance.
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
It wasn’t pretty and it certainly was much closer than anybody had anticipated.
Especially the first half.
But like Coach Obie Farmer said after the game -- “Once the Effingham Hearts became the Effingham Hearts, we took care of business.”
And that transformation took place early in the second half.
After beating Charleston by 37 points just five days earlier, the Hearts found themselves trailing by four points, 42-38, just seven seconds into the third period.
That’s when Farmer had his team start applying full-court pressure.
And that coincides exactly to when the game changed.
The Hearts started swarming the Trojans on defense, forcing turnovers and converting at the offensive end. That pressure was the spark the team needed and they responded by going on a 17-0 scoring run.
Charleston never gave up, but Effingham’s firepower was too much and the Hearts finished off their incredibly successful season with a 79-59 victory at home Saturday afternoon.
“We were down four and then we were up 13,” Farmer said. “Part of our problem was we just didn’t seem to have any energy. But once we started to press, we found that energy, took Charleston out of their rhythm and started to roll.”
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
For the first time in his long career, Jeff Schafer will end a season with a victory.
Normally, there is a post-season and only the state champions can make that claim.
But don’t forget. We’re in the Season of COVID. So nothing is normal any longer.
The Effingham Lady Hearts put together a tremendous second half Thursday night. They trailed by as many as 10 points late in the second quarter, but torched the nets in the final 16 minutes, knocked down some pressure-packed free throws down the stretch and walked off the floor winners.
When the final buzzer sounded, the Lady Hearts had posted a 51-47 win at home over Mattoon.
“It was awesome and so rewarding,” Schafer admitted. “They played so well as a team tonight. They deserved this win.”
And put together an incredible second half to make it happen.
Effingham trailed 15-7 at the end of the first period and 24-16 at halftime. Madison Mapes and Annie Frost scored and Payton Budde drained a three-pointer to open the third period, but midway through, the Lady Hearts were still down by eight points, 31-23.
But that’s when things started to tighten up.
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