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The Paper file photo
CHS senior Jordan Boykin scored six points Friday night. |
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| Boys basketball
Friday
At Crawfordsville
West Lafayette 45, Crawfordsville 38
West Lafayette 9 8 16 12 – 45
Crawfordsville 7 7 11 13 – 38
Scoring:
West Lafayette – Daniel Wodicka 1-5 2-2 5, Matt Lancaster 5-13 4-4 14,
John Shiver 2-8 0-2 4, George Zhang 5-10 7-8 20, Zach Waters 1-2 0-0 2,
Kevin Jones 0-3 0-0 0, Jonah Green 0-0 0-0 0, Andrew Pekny 0-0 0-0 0.
Totals: 14-41 13-16 45. Crawfordsville – Quinten Anderson 1-2 0-0 3,
Nolan Harris 5-9 3-3 15, Jordan Boykin 3-6 0-2 6, Tyler Whittington 1-6
4-4 7, Trent Crabtree 2-9 2-2 7, Brett McKinney 0-0 0-0 0, Klajdi
Osmani 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 12-32 9-11 38.
Three-point shooting:
West Lafayette 4-9 (Wodicka 1-2, Lancaster 0-1, Shiver 0-1, Zhang 3-3,
Jones 0-2), Crawfordsville 5-13 (Anderson 1-1, Harris 2-6, Whittington
1-3, Crabtree 1-3).
Rebounds: West Lafayette 24 (Lancaster 8, Zhang 7, Shiver 5), Crawfordsville 23 (Boykin 10)
Fouls: West Lafayette 11, Crawfordsville 16
Turnovers: West Lafayette 11, Crawfordsville 17
Records: Crawfordsville 1-2, West Lafayette 3-2,
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Reprinted courtesy of:
The Paper of Montgomery County
www.thepaper24-7.com
By John Groth
Sports Editor
In his first varsity start, Nolan Harris showed what Crawfordsville boys basketball coach John Blackwell expected all along.
They’ve found another scoring leader. Maybe even an emotional one, too.
If the Athenians’ junior guard/forward can keep playing like this, they could finally start to turn the corner.
Harris
scored 15 points – all coming in the second half – but Crawfordsville
nearly went scoreless down the stretch and committed too many turnovers
in a 45-38 loss to visiting West Lafayette.
Blackwell acknowledged Harris has already likely earned himself another start in tonight’s game against South Putnam, too.
“Our
team was down. We finally got in our motion and found players to score.
I just happened to catch fire,” said Harris, who went 5-of-9 from the
field, including 2-of-6 from three-point range. “[Last week] Lebanon
had us down and beat us. This game we were down 10 in the huddle and we
said we had more heart than they did. We stepped up but fell short.”
Crawfordsville
(1-2) has now lost five-consecutive games against West Lafayette (3-2)
and hasn’t beaten the Red Devils since the 2003-04 season.
After another nightmare first-half, the Athenians found themselves down by just three.
In
last week’s game against Sagamore Athletic Conference rival Lebanon,
the Athenians went 12:30 in the middle two quarters with only one field
goal. They had the same problem in the second and third quarters
against the Red Devils, just in a shorter spurt.
This time, Crawfordsville went 7:13 over those two middle quarters without a field goal.
West
Lafayette senior guard Matt Lancaster scored eight-straight points –
including six consecutive to end the second quarter to give them a
17-14 halftimelead.
Behind Lancaster and sophomore guard
George Zhang (game-high 20 points), West Lafayette pushed its lead to
as large as 38-26 in the third quarter.
But that’s when Harris started finding his touch.
After
missing his first three shots (all three-pointers) in the first half,
Harris hit five of his next six baskets – including the final five.
Crawfordsville
rallied from that 12-point third-quarter deficit to tie the game at
33-33, then again at 36-36 with a three-pointer by sophomore Trent
Crabtree with 4:49 remaining in the fourth.
That’s the last basket the Athenians had the rest of the game.
Over the final 4:49, Crawfordsville scored just two points – coming on two free throws by Crabtree with 28.6 seconds remaining.
They did have scoring chances and other opportunities. But they couldn’t capitalize off any of them.
Shots
either spun out – like a couple of Crabtree’s three-pointers or senior
Jordan Boykin’s short inside shot to tie the game at 38-38 with 2:30
remaining.
Or they missed defensive assignments.
With
West Lafayette leading 38-36 with less than two minutes left and
playing keep away, the Red Devils found an opening in the
Crawfordsville’s defense.
Blackwell yelled at the Athenians’
defenders to drop down, but two quick passes led to an easy lay-up for
junior forward Zach Waters – his only points of the game – giving West
Lafayette a 40-36 lead with 1:08 left.
Or they committed turnovers.
After
cutting the deficit to just two on Crabtree’s free throws, the
Athenians had two- straight turnovers, including one off an inbounds
pass, in the final 30 seconds. Crawfordsville finished with 17
turnovers overall.
West Lafayette sealed the win from the
free-throw line, hitting 7-of-8 free-throw attempts in the final three
and a half minutes.
“We had a lot of unforced turnovers.
That’s the most frustrating thing,” Blackwell said. “West Lafayette is
a good team and their defense can give you fits. We gave away too many
unforced errors.”
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