Published on January 16, 2026 12:21 pm
Last Updated on January 16, 2026 2:07 pm
Make sure you listen to ALL FOUR games from the final day of the NTC girls basketball tournament (Saturday, Jan. 24) on KJ Country 102.3!
BY DUSTIN WHITE
The National Trail Conference girls basketball tournament kicks off Monday morning at Beecher City High School and Brownstown/St. Elmo heads into the proceedings as the No. 1 Class 1A team in the state and the top seed in the NTC field.
The Bombers (19-1, 4-0 NTC) haven’t lost since the opening week of the season at the Pana Thanksgiving tournament, dropping a 41-34 contest to Highland, a 3A club. BSE also defeated a couple other bigger schools, Pana and Lincoln, during pool play of that challenging tournament before easily dispatching Mattoon in the consolation semifinal; rare early-season snow cancellations meant it never got a chance to play the final game against Gillespie.
Since then it’s been nothing but winning for Coach Tim Pasley’s squad, which is on the precipice of securing a fourth consecutive 20-win season largely behind the efforts of a much-celebrated junior class led by Dayana Haslett’s 21.4 points per game. The Bombers’ leading scorer since the day she played her very first high school game, Haslett blew past 1,000 career points as a sophomore and at her current pace would be knocking at the door of 2,000 as her junior campaign wraps up.
It would be short-sighted, however, to chalk up BSE’s success as simply Haslett’s success. Classmate Madi Miller averages around 13 points per contest and fellow junior Danika Ramsey and seniors Presley Williams and Addie Sasse have all been consistent, reliable contributors to the Bombers’ success … not just this year, but the last three.
This may appear to be Brownstown’s tournament to lose, but a couple worthy challengers hope to stand in the way of the Bombers finally securing the NTC tournament crown. One of them, second-seeded St. Anthony, is the team that fended off BSE in last year’s title game while the other, third-seeded Cumberland, is brand new to the league and looking to announce its presence in a big way.
Much like Brownstown, both St. Anthony and Cumberland feature special scorers who hit the ground running as freshmen and have only picked up speed as their careers have progressed.
The Bulldogs (13-6, 5-0) get 23.9 of their 53.6 points per game from senior Nancy Ruholl. If you’re reading this … you know who Nancy is and you know how special of a player she has been for the Northsiders. No basketball player at St. Anthony High School has scored as many points: Ruholl broke Brock Fearday’s previous record of 1,775 in this year’s season opener and went over 2,200 in last night’s win over Neoga.
Cumberland (17-3, 5-1) gets 20.4 per game from sophomore Jude Miller, who is elevating her game in a tougher conference after averaging 17.5 as a freshman. She is already nearing the 1,000-point plateau and, like the aforementioned Haslett and Ruholl, is emerging as a once-in-a-generation type of scorer creating a definite crest in the history of the Pirates’ girls program (depending on your definition of a generation, of course, because we cannot forget 2006 graduate Amanda Wolke’s career and the more than 2,000 points that came with it).
First-year coach Brandon Miller — yes, Jude’s dad and the varsity assistant a year ago for since-departed Sammi James, who spent a decade resurrecting the Cumberland program before heading home to work and coach at Neoga — also gets 14 points per game (and a lot of times that many rebounds) from junior Alysa Dittamore while senior Jade Carr has never been flashy but has always been a reliable third or fourth scoring option since her ninth-grade season. Dittamore and Carr both sit north of 900 points for their careers along with Miller.
St. Anthony’s key secondary roles are in the hands of junior posts Addie Lauritzen and Ali Kollman along with senior Lilly Gannaway; Gannaway went back out for basketball last year and is back this season for first-year (but not really first-year) Coach Bart Wiedman as a useful guard to have around both in terms of handling the basketball and shooting from outside, while Lauritzen is a scrapper who’ll score and rebound by virtue of being the strongest and most aggressive player on the floor.
Wiedman coached the St. A girls for most of the 2010s and won five regionals in doing so. When the job came open at a bit of a strange time in the school calendar, he agreed to retake the reins and see if he can lead the Bulldogs to a fifth consecutive 20-win season and regional championship.
BSE will open play Tuesday against either No. 8 Cowden-Herrick/Beecher City (3-14, 2-4) or No. 9 South Central (3-8, 1-3) after those two square off in Monday’s 10 a.m. tournament opener. St. Anthony also opens Tuesday against the winner of Monday’s play-in game between No. 7 Windsor/Stew-Stras (7-8, 1-4) and No. 10 North Clay (1-15, 0-6). Junior Kendra Hayes is a Hatchet to keep an eye on this week as she enters play leading Coach Brian Lee’s squad with 15.8 points per game after being the program’s leading scorer as a sophomore and totaling more than 250 points during her freshman campaign.
Cumberland, meanwhile, plays Monday against No. 6 Neoga (6-13, 2-3), which it defeated 47-28 in a Dec. 12 meeting. Unfortunately the young Indians (three freshman starters and only one senior in the program) reportedly lost leading scorer and most experienced varsity guard Malory Henderson to an injury earlier this week and are awaiting more word on what’s next for her.
Fourth-seeded Altamont (9-9, 5-3) opens Monday against No. 5 Dieterich (14-6, 3-4) in a quarterfinal matchup that rematches a 57-40 Altamont victory from just about a month ago. Regrettably, injuries are also affecting the NTC’s other Indian squad as first-year coach Holly Borah has already had to absorb the early-season loss of Lake Land College recruit Kaylee Lurkins and in more recent days has seen sophomore Ada Roberts and junior Avery Aldrich go down with ailments of their own.
Altamont has, however, seen freshman Alyssa Ruholl make the most out of growing playing time and junior Ella Nelson – now the club’s leading scorer at 7.3 per game – take a step forward with double-figure output in six of her last eight games. Dieterich senior Addison Miller paces her Movin’ Maroons at 16.3 points per game and enters NTC play at right around 900 career points, while junior Lena Goebel, a high-motor sparkplug, joins senior Callie Faller in average around eight and a half points per outing.
2026 National Trail Conference Girls Basketball Tournament
at Beecher City High School
Monday, Jan. 19
G1, 10 a.m. – (8) CHBC vs. (9) South Central
G2, 11:30 a.m. – (7) WSS vs. (10) North Clay
G3, 1 p.m. – (4) Altamont vs. (5) Dieterich
G4, 2:30 p.m. – (3) Cumberland vs. (6) Neoga
Tuesday, Jan. 20
G5, 6 p.m. – (1) BSE vs. Winner G1
G6, 7:30 p.m. – (2) St. Anthony vs. Winner G2
Wednesday, Jan. 21
G7, 5 p.m. – Loser G1 vs. Loser G2
G8, 6:30 p.m. – Loser G3 vs. Loser G5
G9, 8 p.m. – Winner G3 vs. Winner G5
Thursday, Jan. 22
G10, 6 p.m. – Loser G4 vs. Loser G6
G11, 7:30 p.m. – Winner G4 vs. Winner G6
Saturday, Jan. 24
G12, 11:30 a.m. – Loser G8 vs. Loser G10 (7th Place)
G13, 1 p.m. – Winner G8 vs. Winner G10 (Consolation/5th Place)
G14, 2:30 p.m. – Loser G9 vs. Loser G11 (3rd Place)
G15, 7:30 p.m. – Winner G9 vs. Winer Game 11 (Championship)