The Cross Town Rival Showdown: Central vs. Centennial Basketball Double Header Game

On Tuesday, February 11, 2025, the Central Maroons hosted the Centennial Chargers in a double-header cross-town rival game. 

To start the day off the Central Maroons hosted a school-wide pep rally to get the teams and the school excited about the big games. At the pep rally, the Champaign Central Dance team and Cheer team performed to open up the event. Dr. Gardner then introduced a new pep rally tradition, the Spirit Stick. This is awarded to the class that has the loudest school spirit, in which the Sophomore Class of 2027 won. A fun race of “wrap the student” in toilet paper followed which saw both Boys and Girls Basketball teams, Cheer team, and Dance Team go head to head. The Girls basketball team won, but it was a close race. 

Then shortly after the Girls’ and Boy’s Basketball teams were announced. First they announced the girls varsity team; Amina Robinson, Alexa (Alex) Parastaran, Zion Reid, Amahri Rhone, Grace Bandy, Olivia Todd, Iy’Jah Grant, Khalia Williams, Rylee Boyer-Killion, Samara McArthur, Molly Kloeppel, Mariam Gadelkarim, Ella Flynn, Chloe Flynn, and Tiana Dean. 

The boys varsity team was then introduced, starting with Landyn Cooper, Tucker Bailey, Cole Vuglar, Trey Cole, Luke Swanson, Chris Bush, Aidyn Beck, Jayden Means, David Hasenstab, Cayden Love, David Riley, Antwon Frazier, Daniel Sago, Nico Micele, and Gabe Kirkland bringing up the rear.

This game was more special than usual. It was the Girl’s Varsity Basketball team’s Senior Night. The seniors for the 2024-2025 season were Alex Parastaran, Amina Robinson, Chloe Flynn, Amahri Rhone, and Mariam Gadelkarim.

The girls’ team kicked off the game keeping it pretty close. In the first quarter, it was a rough start for the Maroons. The girls struggled to get their momentum going until the middle of the second quarter. Central players started banking shots left and right to eventually be up by two at the half with a score of 18-20. “I feel like we struggled so much in the first quarter because Centennial showed that they wanted it more than we did, but the girls didn’t let that stop them,” Coach Kris Bell stated.

During the halftime show, Chick-fil-a the cow and Max the Maroon came out and chose students for a shoot off. A Centennial student and a Central student were shooting to see if they could win free Chick-fil-A. The Central student Ronald Baker was able to get his shot up just in time before the clock went off.

Once halftime was over the Maroons and Chargers came back out ready to continue the battle. For the whole 3rd quarter it was back and forth. The Chargers were able to score four more points than the Maroons did in the third. The quarter ended with a score of 30-32 Chargers up. After a long battle throughout the game and a couple of fights here and there, Central came up on top in the long run with a final score of 44-52 Maroons. The leading scorers for the Maroons were senior, Alex Parastaran and Junior, Samara McArthur with both scoring 11 points each. The top rebounder was Sophomore, Tiana Dean with 14 rebounds, 6 Offensive and 8 Defensive. “I feel like overall we could have performed better, but a win is a win. I was happy with how many rebounds we got down low in the paint.” Tiana Dean stated.

Overall, this game made another piece of history for the Maroons Girls Basketball Team. The girls were able to take down their cross town rival the Centennial Chargers for the second time this season. JV girls also defeated the Chargers both times as well this season. 

After the girls’ game got wrapped up it was time for the boys’ game. Just like the girls were, the boys kept it neck and neck for almost the whole first half. In the past game against the Chargers and the Maroons, the Maroons were able to get the win and kept growing from there. However the Chargers weren’t gonna give up as easily as they did last time. By halftime, the Maroons were up not by much though. 

During the halftime show, the Central Maroons dance and cheer teams put on performances for the audience. Once the cheer and dance teams got the crowd ready for the second half both teams came running out full of momentum. 

The third quarter was once again a back and forth game. Both teams not wanting to get too far behind from the other. With banking 3’s left and right by the Chargers and the Maroons, the game was a mindset of “anything you can do I can do better.” 

Coming to a close in the third quarter the student sections started getting a bit more aggressive by throwing items across the bleachers at each other. Ending in both student sections having to leave the game for the rest of the night. “I don’t think it was right. While yes they were throwing them across parents, they were just being students. I really don’t think they needed to kick everyone out, just for it to lead to multiple fights in the parking lots.” A student at Central Hayden Curtis stated. With this being said once the students got kicked out there were many arguments between the schools. This shortly led to tons of fights erupting in the parking lots of Champaign Central.

Through the fourth quarter the Chargers had begun to pull ahead even more than they already did. The Maroons had lost almost all of their momentum and strength. While the Maroons were down the Chargers took that to their advantage and began to keep hitting every shot. 

Once the fourth quarter ended the Centennial Chargers had defeated the Central Maroons with a score of, 59-47 Chargers. The leading scorer and rebounder for the Maroons was Senior Chris Bush with 21 overall points and 6 overall rebounds. He was followed by Junior Trey Cole, with 10 points and Senior Aidyn Beck, with 5 rebounds.

While this was the last game for seniors and may not have been the result the Maroons wanted, they know this long and hard battle is nowhere close to being over.