DOVER — It was a conference road win in the middle of five away from home on a weeknight.
The Crawfordsville 64-56 Sagamore Conference win over Western Boone was all that, but the Athenians left Dover with a sour taste.
“First and foremost, our guys battled,” Cville coach David Pierce said. “We overcame our own adversity. I’ll take this win, especially over a WeBo team that played hard, but we had half-effort at practice earlier this week, and half-effort at times tonight. I’m really disappointed in our leadership and I hope that tonight was a wakeup call.”
As disappointed as Pierce was, WeBo coach Josh Burkett was pleased with his Stars.
“We knew we had to be in attack mode,” Burkett said. “I thought we guarded well and went at them. They are a veteran and very good team, and I think we took some forward steps tonight.”
The Athenians, who move to 8-3 overall and hold on to a share of the conference lead at 4-0, got out to a lead, surrendered that lead, and finally put the Stars away with a 25-point fourth quarter.
WeBo fought back from the early deficit, took the lead once in the second quarter, but had to play from behind for the rest of the game as they fall to 3-12 overall and 1-6 in the Sagamore.
Ty Lynas had 14 of the Athenians 21 first half points, and finished with a game-best 26. The senior was also tied for rebounding honors with seven.
Jesse Hall added 13 points, also had seven boards and dished out four assists and blocked three shots.
“They (Lynas and Hall) are our leaders,” Pierce said, “but they had 11 turnovers that they played through. That is unacceptable from senior leaders.”
Alex Kellerman added 10 points, as Cville was 24-of-42 from the field, 5-of-16 from long range and 11-of-18 from the line. Both teams had 31 rebounds and the visitors had 15 turnovers.
“Mekhi Wallace had an excellent game off the bench,” Pierce said of the junior. “He was 4-of-4 from the field and had four rebounds. Cale Coursey also had a couple big offensive rebounds when we needed them.”
The Stars were led by Jonathan McAtee with 19 points and Seth McClaskey with 16.
The Stars are back in action Saturday with a game at Clinton Central, while the Athenians road trip continued with a Saturday afternoon game at Riverton Parke and short ride to North Montgomery next Tuesday.
