The Crawfordsville girls held off a late Greencastle rally and ended the game on a 10-0 run to pull away for a 58-44 win.
The Tiger Cubs cut the lead to 48-44 around the halfway mark of the final quarter, but the senior-led Athenians responded well to pick up their third win on the season.
“We know that we’re fully capable of going on some big runs,” Crawfordsville coach Tyler Smith said. “When we picked up the defensive intensity, that started to create things for us on the other end. It’s good for us to win a game where we didn’t play our best. One our motto’s is ‘find a way’ and tonight we were able to do that.”
One of the runs that the Athenians went on included a 17-0 run which spanned the second and third quarters. Crawfordsville (3-4, 0-1 SAC) scored the last 12 points of the second quarter and the first five of the third before the Tiger Cubs could find a way to score.
Liddy McCarty set the tone for the Athenians in the first half scoring 11 of her 13 points in the first two quarters. She ended the game going a perfect 9/9 from the line as well. Olivia Reed led all scorers with 16 points in the game and Taylor Abston recorded a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds. Kearston Hutchens scored nine and Shea Williamson rounded out the scoring with eight for the Athenians.
“Liddy had a great night getting to the rim and drawing fouls and then converting at the line,” Smith said of his senior guard. “Taylor had a huge bounce back game with that double-double. Olivia, Kearston and Shea knocked down their shots and led the way for us. It was a complete team effort tonight.”
Emma Hunter led the Tiger Cubs in scoring with 12 points. Raigan Chavez added a double-double with 11 points and 14 rebounds, ten of which came on the offensive end. Anna Zellers (10), Evelyn Briones (9) and Michayla Dinn (2) rounded out the scoring for th Tiger Cubs.
Having a well balanced scoring effort is something Smith was proud of and something he wants his team to continue to do because he knows all five of his starters can lead them any night.
“We want to have that balanced attack,” he said. “This was a good step in that direction. Hopefully we can build off of this tonight.”
Smith also gave a shout out to the fans who helped energize the team after being gone from home for an extended period of time.
“It was great to be back home,” he said. “They helped us pick up the energy when we were down a little bit.”
Crawfordsville will be back home Saturday for their second SAC game of the year as they host Danville.
