Crawford Responds; Advances Here is my story: Connor McCrearys driving layup with :51 seconds to play gave Colonel Crawford the lead for good and they sealed the win by making five of six free throws in final :34 seconds and beat Pemberville Eastwood (42-36) in the division three district semi-final Thursday night at Ashland University. The will play Huron (17-6) on Saturday night in the district title game. The Tigers beat Willard (41-37) in the first semi-final on Thursday. After falling behind (36-35) with just under a minute play when Eastwood guard Steven Bradley stole the ball an scored, McCreary took the inbounds pass and took it the length of the floor to give the Eagles the lead back. We have to be an unselfish basketball team and we did that at the offensive end tonight, said Colonel Crawford coach David Sheldon. After the Eagles took the lead, their defense forced two turnovers and blocked a shot in Eastwoods final three possessions. Eastwood has 12 turnovers and Crawford added seven steals on the night. I am most proud of our defensive effort. I talked all week about Schmeltz, he is averaging 20 some a game, and we hold him to five points. Thats a credit to Sager chasing him and all of the guys we put n the floor. I thought we did a much better job in the second half of keeping them off the offensive glass. We did a much better job of limiting them to one shot. When the game was on the line we got big stops. We talk all year about toughness and we did a great job with the game on the line of getting huge stops, said Sheldon. Trailing (20-19) with under three minutes to play in the third quarter Todd Entenmann drained a three pointer from the right wing and Logan Sager followed with triples on consecutive possessions to give the Eagles a (28-20) lead with 1:55 to play in the period. Jake Schmeltz has scored more than 1,000 points in his career, but Crawford went box and one on him and Sheldon felt it took him out of his rhythm a little bit. We had seen other teams do that and we wanted to sort of play mind games a little bit and we got him standing a little bit. They had other guys step up and hit shots, but thats who we wanted hitting shots, he said. Schmeltzs only field goals were a banked three pointer in the first quarter and a layup in the fourth. He finished 2-9 from the floor and didnt get to the foul line. Eastwood out rebounded Crawford 30 to 23, but Sheldon feels they got some big boards. We got some huge rebounds and like I said toughness. In the second half we did a much better job in traffic and going and getting the ball on the defensive end, he said. Colonel Crawford (18-6) won district crowns in division four the last two seasons and Sheldon says they cant wait for Saturday night. Its our third straight year of being in the district championship and thats something to be proud of and we are looking forward to coming back here, said Sheldon. Huron missed 10 of its first 11 shots and found itself down 12-4 after one quarter, but they too did an outstanding defensive job as Willard made just 16 of 45 shots for 36% for the game and 10 of their final 35 for 29%. Willards leading scorer Carson Ebert was just 3-16 from the field and 1-12 on three point shots. Jordan Moore was Willards, and the games, leading scorer with 14 points. The Flashes (15-9) cut it to three with :45 seconds to play on Moores lay in, but could get no closer. Sheldon knows they will be in for a real battle against the defending division three district champions. They are very athletic and they have a couple of shooters with them. Its a very good basketball team and they were in this game last year, so this isnt knew. They play in a very good conference all year, said Sheldon. Published 3/07/14 (C) Swankonsports Comments can be e-mailed to swankonsports@gmail Or you can post comments on our new forum
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 07:33:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015