Drew Pountain
Section618.com
MT. CARMEL — The Mt. Carmel Golden Aces posted one of the best records in school history on the basketball court, even during a season shortened by the pandemic. Finishing 15-2, the Aces were nothing shy of excellent this season, as both of their losses came to 3A schools.
The season started for the Aces at the Hilltop against the Mt. Vernon Rams, a 3A school that plays in the South 7 Conference. It was a game that went down to the wire, and ended up with the Aces having to take a full-court heave to win. The Rams ended up winning that game 55-53.
In the following game, senior big man Kaleb Applebey hit the 1,000-career point mark in the 68-45 win over Newton. The win over the Eagles started a four-game winning streak. During that stretch, the Aces saw themselves vault to the top of the Associated Press 2A state rankings.
The Aces would see a few injury problems as Applebey took a tumble in the win over Robinson. He would not play in the two games that followed and saw limited minutes in the third. Being without Applebey would cause problems for the Aces, as they would go on to lose to the Centralia Orphans, another 3A team out of the South 7, 52-35. Mt. Carmel bounced back with a win over the Paris Tigers 42-31, a night senior guard Beau Stipp hit the 1,000-career point mark as well.
The next biggest test of the shortened season came when the then fifth-ranked Golden Aces hosted the ninth-ranked Mules from Fairfield. It was a showdown at the Hilltop that had a definite postseason feeling to it. The Mules took an early lead, but the Aces dominated from the second quarter on, going on to win the game 52-37.
The final game of the year came at home against the Olney Tigers. The Tigers tried to stop the Aces’ offense by playing at a slow tempo. The Aces’ stifling defense halted the Tigers’ offense, cruising to the 38-22 victory, finishing the season with a 15-2 record.
Four seniors said goodbye to the Hilltop on Friday night–guard Ethan Belt, guard Max Zimmerman, guard Beau Stipp and center Kaleb Applebey.
When talking to the seniors, they all had the same thing to say when asked about the Covid season. “It has been weird,” said Belt. “We were supposed to go far into the postseason.”
The Aces had high hopes if there would’ve been a postseason with a good surrounding cast around Stipp and Applebey. “We thought we were going to have a far run here together.” Said Stipp.
Three out of the four seniors are on to different sports. In this next spring season, Stipp is playing football, and Belt is playing soccer. Applebey will not play football for the first time in his high school career but will wait and play baseball when it starts in early April.
Max Zimmerman, on the other hand, is “finished with sports” after his final basketball game. He has applied to the Air Force Academy in Colorado. The backup plan would be to attend Iowa State.
As for post-high school plans for the other seniors, Belt plans on attending SIUE and becoming CNRA, or giving a patient anesthesia for surgery. Stipp plans to go to Wabash Valley College and “figure it out from there.” Applebey is off to Wabash Valley as well where he will play baseball. He has already committed to The University of Kentucky after his playing career at Wabash.
