GBB - Western Boone Hangs On To Topple Crawfordsville

WESTERN BOONE HANGS ON TO TOPPLE CRAWFORDSVILLE
By Mike McGraw
Executive Director

With all due respect to their gender, watching Friday, February 1st’s game between the Western Boone and Crawfordsville girls basketball teams was a lot like watching a heavyweight fight. Even when the action was not that heated, you still knew the fireworks were coming and sitting on the edge of your chair in anticipation. The fans in attendance were not disappointed.

This game had everything you expected and some things you didn’t. The first of the surprises was the offensive output of Western Boone in the first quarter. The Stars came out hitting everything they shot and amassed whopping 22 first quarter points. That was more than enough to take a comfortable 22-12 lead over a sluggish Athenian squad.

For most of the evening, it looked like that would be all the cushion Western Boone would need. That is because of one of the things you expected to happen. Beginning in the second quarter, the Stars went into lockdown mode at the defensive end. They switched to a 2-3 zone and did a marvelous job of protecting the inside, limiting Crawfordsville to one perimeter jumper after another. Crawfordsville couldn’t buy a bucket and managed only four second period points. The lead at halftime was 30-16. Against a team that is as good as Western Boone defensively, that is akin to a thirty point lead by anybody else.

Western Boone again changed defenses at the start of the second half, and again it worked. The Athenians continued to struggle at the offensive end for much of the third period. With a minute to play in the quarter, the lead was 43-27. Then came the thunder. It would soon be followed by a lot of lightning.

First, Crawfordsville’s Paige Thompson hit a three pointer. Then a stop at the defensive end led to two more points and the lead was only 11 in the waning seconds. Western Boone responded with two free throws, but the Athenians’ Lexi Stevens came right back with a long trey at the buzzer to close the gap to ten and you knew the battle was on.

The speed and ferocity of Crawfordsville’s rally in the fourth was nothing short of remarkable. It took just three minutes for the Athenians to tie the game at 47. Stevens led the charge and from the time the game was tied until the end was a classic battle of backcourt talent. Stevens was a one man gang for Crawfordsville and Western Boone’s Kassie Yates was nothing short of magnificent.

Yates dominated the ball at the Stars end and her dead eye free throw shooting kept their heads above water. On three occasions she broke ties from the charity stripe. At their end, Crawfordsville attacked the offensive glass like a swarm of locust, responding every time. It all led to a final 27 seconds of near maddening excitement.

With the Stars leading 54-52, Yates sank two more free throws to take the lead to four. Crawfordsville struggled to fond a shot, but the diminutive Stevens simply refused to quit. She drained a three pointer with 6.7 seconds left to cut the margin to 56-55. It took the Athenians only 1.4 seconds to commit the ensuing foul, sending Yates to the stripe with 5.3 seconds to play. Finally, the saw a crack in her armor as she dropped only one of the two tosses to make it 57-55. Crawfordsville quickly advanced the ball past midcourt and called what looked like a questionable timeout with only 1.6 seconds on the clock.

As it turned out, those kinds of decisions are why Darren Haas has his team at seventeen wins. The Athenians ran a picture perfect side inbounds play to Stevens who came off a back screen and streaked to the bucket. The Western Boone defender had no choice but to commit the foul.

Stevens calmly sank the first free throw. The second, however, was just long and bounced off the back rim. The rebound caromed into a game ending scrum. The Stars had hung on for a 57-56 victory. It was everything you could want from a game between two of the state’s top 3A teams. Western Boone played a nearly perfect game in building the lead, and showed great composure when Crawfordsville roared back. While momentarily crushing for Crawfordsville, the character they showed in their comeback is a strong building block for next week’s sectional. Both teams will enter sectional play with records of 17-3.
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