The Montgomery County boys basketball team added another South Callaway tournament championship to its trophy case on Saturday.

The Wildcats edged the Russellville Indians 54-52 in the tournament finals to win their seventh South Callaway title and their fifth in the last seven years. MCHS is tied for second with New Haven and Harrisburg for the most championships in the tournament. Host-South Callaway has the most with eight.

MCHS finished 3-0 in the six-team tournament. The Wildcats, who were seeded second, defeated Vienna and South Callaway in pool play to advance to the championship.

Russellville, the No. 4 seed, knocked off top-seeded North Callaway and fifth-seeded Hermann to qualify for the tournament finals.

Also on Saturday, the MCHS girls finished third in the South Callaway tournament after beating Hermann 49-44 in the third-place game. The Wildcats avenged the 46-43 loss to the Bearcats in the Montgomery County Invitational semifinals in December.

MCHS, which was seeded third, finished 2-1 in the tournament. The Wildcats beat South Callaway 52-24 in the first round and lost to eventual champion Blair Oaks 54-47 in the semifinals.

Both MCHS boys and girls teams have nine wins apiece. The boys improved to 9-5 and the girls improved to 9-6. They both play Bowling Green in an Eastern Missouri Conference home game on Tuesday at Ballew & Snell Court.

In the boys finals, the Wildcats were trailing 52-51 when senior Colby Ellis scored a layup with 25 seconds left in the game to give his team the one-point lead. He received a pass from sophomore Jackson Benney at the paint and scored the basket. Ellis finished with eight points. 

Senior Wyatt March followed with a free throw with 5.9 seconds left to complete the scoring. He finished with a team-high 19 points and earned all-tournament honors.

Russellville had a chance to win the game as time expired, but Langsten Ratcliff’s 3-point attempt was no good.

Senior Adrian Combs was voted the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. He scored 45 points in three games, including a pair of 18-point efforts against Vienna and South Callaway.

In the girls contest, sophomore Emma Rodgers scored a career-high 30 points and junior Aubrey Janes added 14 to lead the Wildcats, who came back from a seven-point, second-quarter deficit to pull off the win over Hermann.

Both Rodgers and Janes were named to the all-tournament team. Janes earned all-tournament honors at South Callaway for the second straight year.

Rodgers finished with 64 points and Janes had 42 in the tournament.

MCHS will compete in the Hermann Tournament from Jan. 26-31. The boys are seeded fourth and will play fifth-seeded Warrenton in a first-round game on Jan. 27. The girls are seeded fifth and will play Hermann again in a first-round game on Jan. 26.

Editor’s note: A print version of this story will be published in the Jan. 21 issue of the Montgomery Standard.