The 1963-64 Corpus Christi team had a very good year, going 19-5 on the season. They were coached by Rex Davis, who was in his second year. His first year they had gone 15-10.
Key players were Pat Prina, Jim Kennedy, John Noonan, Mike Hanrahan, Jim Kemmer, and Bob Scott. They took second in the Little Six Conference, won the Knox County Tourney, and earned the #2 seed in the Galesburg Regional. Other team members were Mike Prina, Bob Calderone, Mike Rice, Bob Scott, and Craig Wilke.
In the Regional Championship game, Corpus Christi managed to gain a short lived lead in the second quarter. One of Galesburg’s top players, Rick Callahan got into early foul trouble, and John Noonan for Corpus also got into early foul trouble. The sports writers felt Galesburg was able to handle this with great depth but Corpus could not. Galesburg High School ran away to a 20 point lead and the Regional Championship.
After the Regional Championship game, Joe Morrissey, the Galesburg Register-Mail sports editor wrote an article complimenting the players and the fans. It should be noted that Joe was a Corpus Christi grad.
In the 1-class system in Illinois HS basketball, it was very, very difficult for smaller schools to compete vs. the larger schools. The IHSA went to 2-class system in 1972. There are a lot of small school teams like the 1964 Corpus Christi team that wonder what might have been if they could have played in a 2-class system.
After Corpus Christi defeated Galesburg in 1954, GHS met Corpus/Costa four more times, all in Regional play. In 1958- Galesburg won in the semi-finals 85-48, in 1960- Galesburg won in the championship 78-45, in 1964- Galesburg won in the championship 63-43, and in 1966- Galesburg won 78-66 in the championship. Costa closed its doors after the 1970-1 school year. In the all-time series of the city rivals, Galesburg HS had a 17-1 record.
One of the all-time great basketball games for the community of Galesburg took place in 1966 when Costa and Larry Woods met Galesburg and Dale Kelley in Bushnell for the Regional Champsionship.
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