Three Little Illini Conference girls basketball teams celebrated on Friday night by cutting down the nets after winning IHSA Regional championships. Mt. Carmel, Olney, and Paris will all move on to the Class 2A Sectional tournament next week.

Here’s the rub – they will all be at the same tournament site in Olney, joined by perennial power Teutopolis, to form one of the toughest – if not the toughest – of the eight Class 2A Sectionals in the state. Two ranked teams (6th-ranked Teutopolis, 10th-ranked Mt. Carmel), one that was for most of the season (Paris), and the host Lady Tigers (19-13) – an impressive field to say the least.

Here’s what happened on Thursday night:

at Eldorado
Olney 50, Carmi 42
at Mt. Carmel
#10 2A Mount Carmel 46, Fairfield 23
at Paris
Paris 55, #6t 2A Effingham 51
at Teutopolis
#6t 2A Teutopolis 32, Robinson 20

Here’s the schedule at Olney:

Tuesday, Feb. 24 (Sectional seeds listed in parenthesis)
Game 1 at 6:00 pm: (3) Paris vs. (3) Olney
Game 2 at 7:30 pm: (1) Mt. Carmel vs. (2) Teutopolis

Thursday, Feb. 26
Game 3 at 6:00 pm: Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2 (Winner advances to Benton Super-Sectional)

Paris had perhaps the biggest win of the bunch. The Tigers, 25-5 on the year with all five losses against state-ranked teams, avenged one of them by rallying to a 55-51 upset win over (tied for 6th-rated) Effingham. Paris, with an underclass-laden club, was led by junior Macy Bicknell with 23 points. Another junior, Kailey Young, added 13 points for the winners.

Effingham’s biggest lead of 21-14 came at the 4:06 mark of the second quarter. Paris coach Dave Tingley held off calling a timeout at that point. And, as he told the Paris Sports Network audience after the game, he was glad he did. “I almost called one,” he said. “I hate to call a timeout and give (opponents) the pleasure of knowing they forced us into one. Then we got a couple of stops and got ourselves back into it.

“Momentum in a high school game is huge.”

The Tigers recovered for a 38-34 lead at halftime, scored the first five points of the third quarter, and never trailed again.

“We are ecstatic about having four more days of basketball and getting the chance to play on Tuesday,” Tingley said.

Teutopolis (24-6) has owned the LIC in season matchups to date, with a 5-0 record. The Shoes already had one win against the other three Sectional opponents before Thanksgiving.  Here is how each team has fared against the Sectional field:

Mt. Carmel 4-1  (2-0 vs. Olney, 2-0 vs. Paris, 0-1 vs. Teutopolis)
Olney 0-6  (0-2 vs. Paris, 0-2 vs. Mt. Carmel, 0-2 vs. Teutopolis)
Paris 2-4  (2-0 vs. Olney, 0-2 vs. Mt. Carmel, 0-2 vs. Teutopolis)
Teutopolis 5-0  (2-0 vs. Olney, 2-0 vs. Paris, 1-0 vs. Mt. Carmel)

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.