Charleston High School boys’ basketball suffered its largest defeat of the season, losing 77-33 to the Centralia Orphans at Effingham High School Wednesday evening in the regional semifinals.

The loss eliminates the Trojans (12-21, 3-7) from the Illinois High School Association Class 3A postseason.

The Orphans (27-4, 6-2), who are a 1-seed in the Marian Sectional, opened the game on a 13-0 run and outscored Charleston 21-4 in the first quarter and 23-7 in quarter number two.

“They’re a great team,” junior guard Tyler Oakley said. “I mean, definitely not the way that we wanted the season to end, but we never gave up, we kept battling to the end.”

Centralia converted on its first four three-point attempts, all coming from near the top of the key. Once the Trojans adjusted their defense, the Orphans started hitting three-pointers from the corner.

With the Orphans’ lead over 30 points after the third quarter, there was a running clock in the fourth quarter.

“That’s one of the best teams in the state,” senior guard Luke Bonnstetter said. “It’s rare to see them even miss a shot. One of the best defenses we’ve played all year. Kudos to them, they’re very well coached.”

This game marks the second meeting between these teams this season. In the first one, which was a home game for Charleston, the Orphans won 58-32 after starting the game slow offensively.

In this game, the Orphans pulled away early. All but three Orphans scored points, and three players scored double figures.

Bonnstetter was the only player in double figures for the Trojans, leading both teams in scoring with 17.

“We knew if they hit a lot of shots that that would possibly be the outcome,” Deadmond said. “We caught them last time on not a great shooting night, and they lit it up in the first half. It’s hard to play defense when they set such good screens and get their guys so open.”

It’s the final high school basketball game for Bonnstetter and the rest of the Trojan seniors.

The scoreboard doesn’t represent how hard the team fought, Bonnstetter said, not just in this game but throughout the season and throughout all the time he’s spent with this group of players dating back to elementary school.

“[It was] a lot better of a year than we were all expecting,” Bonnstetter said. “Yeah, its sad that it’s over, but we grew a lot as a team over the years.”

For Deadmond, this marks the end of his first season as head coach. He said he was proud of everyone, especially the seniors who have played for multiple head coaches in their high school careers.

“It’s really hard to go like we’ve done for the last several years where you have a different coach every year or two,” Deadmond said. “Learning a new system every year, that’s difficult for high school kids to be able to adapt to that.”

Deadmond says he’s excited with the group that’s coming back next year and said that the Trojans must get better defensively.