The Edwardsville High School basketball teams hosted and participated in the First Annual Scott Credit Union Shootout on Saturday, Dec. 1. All proceeds from the day will go to Coaches Versus Cancer, an initiative through the American Cancer Society.

Coaches Versus Cancer began at University of Missouri mens basketball games when students began donating money whenever the team scored a three-pointer. For the past 25 years, Coaches Versus Cancer, along with the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the ACS, have been raising money with events, including the EHS Shootout.

Athletic Director Alex Fox is looking to continue the Shootout at EHS into the future

“We are looking forward to starting a new tradition at the high school. We are hoping to build and expand on it and get more teams involved,” Mr. Fox said to the Intelligencer. “We would like to maintain the local teams but also build with national teams.”

The Edwardsville girls basketball team began the day against Highland at 12 p.m. Junior Quierra Love, currently averaging 8 points per game, said that the loss was hard, but helps the team improve.

“We never like to lose but as long as we improve and learn somethings the win isn’t as important,” she said.

It was the first loss of the season and the first home loss for the Edwardsville girls since Feb. 6, 2010, against Belleville Althoff.

Throughout the day, teams from Highland, Carbondale, Mount Vernon, De Smet, Nashville, Metro East Lutheran High School, Collinsville and St. Mary’s all came out to support the cause and get some game time. The EHS boys closed out the shootout against Belleville Althoff at 7:30 p.m.

EHS won 40-37, and senior Malik Robinson was humbled to play for the cause.

“We are very fortunate to be able to have the things we have and do the things we do,” he said. “Sometimes we take how fortunate we are for granted because a lot of people aren’t able to do some of the things we can or have some of the things we have.”