Cody Dickshot leads Breese Central past rival Mater Dei to win Illinois Class 2A Nashville Regional

Dickshot scored game-high 17 points

Paul Halfacre | Feb 24, 2023

NASHVILLE, Ill. – The thought burned in his and his teammates’ minds for nearly a month.

So when Cody Dickshot saw who they were getting in the regional championship match, all he could do was smile.

Vengeance was at hand.

“After they beat us back at home, we felt like we had to get our revenge,” Dickshot said. “We’ve been thinking about that game since then.”

The Breese Central senior and his teammates got even on Friday evening with a 51-37 victory over Mater Dei in the Class 2A Nashville Regional final at Nashville High School.

“There’s nothing better than beating Mater Dei in a regional championship,” Dickshot said.

Breese Central (28-4) will square off with Carterville (26-6) in a Class 2A Pinckneyville Sectional semifinal game on Wednesday evening at Pinckneyville High School.

The win gives Breese Central its first back-to-back regional title wins since 2015-17 and its fifth under coach Jeremy Shubert in 10 seasons.

“We set the goal at the beginning of the year, we wanted to win the conference and win regionals and go as far as we can,” Shubert said. “We got two of our goals and we don’t want to stop now.”

The Cougars led from the opening tip to the ending buzzer, but Mater Dei (15-17) tied up the game just out of halftime behind the backs of three-successive 3-pointers.

That earned a quick timeout from Shubert.

“That was kind of a reset button for us,” Dickshot said. “We were letting their shooters get open.”

Dickshot, who led all scorers with 17 points, led the counterattack. Slashing and attacking the rim with reckless abandon helped key a 6-0 run for the Cougars.

“We responded well, got to 24 all and then they went on a 6-0 run right away,” Mater Dei coach Cory Arentsen said. “Just things didn’t go our way. Didn’t make the shots like you need to against a good team like that.”

Dickshot also collected eight rebounds to go along with two steals.

The Cougars were able to pound the glass, out-rebounding Mater Dei 32-15, including a 12-1 rebounding advantage on the offensive glass.

“The offensive rebounds seemed to be such daggers,” Arentsen said. “They came at moments, like, ‘Damn, we needed that.’ Against a team like that, extra possessions, they got more shots than you and you’re not making shots, it’s going to be hard.”

After seeing Mater Dei shoot 85 percent from inside the arc in the regular-season meeting, Breese Central switched things up on the defensive end and limited the Knights to just 13 made shots on 35 attempts.

“Our defense, we finally found a way to guard the pick and roll,” Dickshot said. “We worked on it all week. It ended up working out in the end.”

Junior post player Zane Schrage scored all 12 of his points in the second half to go along with seven rebounds.

“Zane Schragge was huge in the second half,” Shubert said. “He was just huge. Him getting inside and scoring.”

Junior Mason Shubert tallied eight points with six assists for the Cougars.

Senior Dalton Markus paced the Mater Dei attack with 14 points in the loss.

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