Published on February 26, 2026 11:12 pm
Last Updated on February 27, 2026 7:32 am
BY DUSTIN WHITE
ARGENTA — Alysa Dittamore had quite possibly the game of her life and Cumberland High School held the state’s fourth-ranked team almost 17 points below its season average, but the Pirates’ unprecedented postseason run came to an end Thursday night in the championship game of the Class 1A Argenta-Oreana girls basketball sectional as Mt. Pulaski edged out a 37-36 victory in a game heard on 979XFM.
In a game that came right down to the last few possessions of the night, the top-seeded Hilltoppers (31-1) had just a play or two more go their way in Cumberland’s bid to win its first-ever girls basketball sectional title two days removed from winning the program’s first sectional contest in 45 years of existence.
Cumberland (27-5) finishes with the most wins in program history and the program’s only other regional championship besides the 2010-11 squad.
Dittamore, a junior, was a force for the Pirates with 21 points and 17 rebounds. She was a focal point in the Cumberland offense as they ran out to an early 9-2 lead and helped keep her team afloat after Mt. Pulaski found its sea legs and put together a 7-0 run to tie the game at 9-all. At that the point, Mt. Pulaski took a 23-17 lead into halftime, a Raegan Jones three-pointer was the only non-Dittamore scoring Cumberland had managed.
Leading scorer Jude Miller managed 10 points after a scoreless first half and Cumberland erased most of its halftime deficit in a 7-2 third quarter before even taking as much as a three-point lead in the late minutes of the game, but it wasn’t quite enough to saddle Mt. Pulaski with its first loss all season to a 1A team.
The Hilltoppers’ top scorer, Alyson Murphy, led with 18 points after scoring 31 in the semifinals against Tri-County. The senior is well over 2,000 for her career. Freshman Ella Martin, the only non-starter to see action for Mt. Pulaski, hit a couple enormous shots down the stretch; that included a long two-point jumper to tie the game late.
Both teams struggled from three-point range; Mt. Pulaski was 1-for-18 and Cumberland was 3-for-18. Cumberland had 18 turnovers to Mt. Pulaski’s 12 but did hold a 30-22 rebounding advantage thanks in large part to Dittamore’s double-double.
Dittamore amassed 526 rebounds last season as a sophomore, putting her sixth on IHSA’s all-time single season list for girls basketball. Incidentally, according to team numbers, she entered play Thursday with . . . 526. She appears to now sit fourth on that list, passing the fifth-place (527) and fourth-place (530) numbers but falling short of the 550 amassed by Cowden-Herrick/Beecher City’s Micah Jones in 2012-13.
Additionally, Dittamore pulled down 33 rebounds in a game earlier this season to break the program record of 31 set by Tara Dittamore in 1999. Additionally, she has already smashed the program’s previous career rebounding record of 954 set by Diana Cook between 1984 and 1988. She is also a 1,000-point career scorer along with Miller, a sophomore now sitting at 1,189 points for her career, and outgoing senior Jade Carr.
Carr, the only senior starter graduating off this year’s team and a four-year varsity player for the Cumberland program, has committed to play at Lake Land College next year.
Under first-year head coach Brandon Miller and former coach Sammi James, the longest-tenured mentor in program history at nine years prior to taking a job in her hometown Neoga district, Cumberland has completed its fourth winning season in five years . . . a feat never before accomplished since its 1980 beginnings.
Mt. Pulaski advances to Monday’s Arcola Super-Sectional where it will face Edwards County, which outlasted Brownstown/St. Elmo 50-44 in the title game of the Wayne City Sectional.
Class 1A Argenta-Oreana Sectional
Championship
CUMBERLAND (36)
Miller 3-2 — 10, Tolen 1-0 — 2, Carr 0-0 — 0, Jones 1-0 — 3, Dittamore 10-1 — 21, Leitch 0-0 — 0. TOTALS 15 FG, 3 FT.
MT. PULASKI (37)
Brown 2-1 — 6, Murphy 6-6 — 18, Marten 3-3 — 9, Smith 0-0 — 0, Cooper 0-0 — 0, Martin 2-0 — 4. TOTALS 13 FG, 10 FT.
Cumberland 9 8 7 12 — 36
Mt. Pulaski 4 19 2 12 — 37
3-Point FG — Cumberland 3 (Miller 2, Jones 1), Mt. Pulaski 1 (Brown).