Coming off of a thrilling win over country rivals North Montgomery, the Crawfordsville Athenian Boys Basketball team (4-3) turned around to face the Seeger Patriots (5-1) on Saturday night.
The Athenians would fall 48-24 after a strong 16 point performance from Seeger senior Luke Pluimer, who went 3-6 from the beyond the arc. Junior Alec Saidian would provide 10 points and a couple of rebounds to give the Athenians a bright spot.
Despite the scoreline, Crawfordsville held strong at the end of the first quarter, with the game tied at 14. Seeger would open up the second quarter with a five-minute and five second, 11-0 run, outsourcing the Athenians 17-4 to close out the half. Crawfordsville would show fight, with Saidian bolstering the scoring efforts, late in the second quarter.
Once the second half was underway, it was all Seeger for the rest of the game. Crawfordsville would only score six points in the second half, to the Patriots’ 17.
Both Seeger and Crawfordsville would rotate their starters, once the game was out of reach for the Athenians. Fouls and turnovers would plague Crawfordsville, leading to Seeger to pile on the points. Cville, who was playing their second game in two days, felt the exhaustion down the stretch.
“We’re gonna have to find some depth,” Athenian coach David Pierce said. “The guys that we have out there are going to have to do better, be more efficient. We got to be tough and I know they (Seeger) wanted it a little bit more.”
Now the Athenians will turn to focus on Speedway on December 22 and the Sugar Creek Classic coming up in just a few weeks. Pierce knows his squad will have a lot to work to do in the weeks ahead, leading up to the tournament.
“We’re going to, us coaches, come in on Monday and get after it next week preparing because we got some major weaknesses that we’re going to have to fix before we get to the Sugar Creek Classic.” Pierce said.
Crawfordsville hosts the Sugar Creek Classic on Jan. 5-6 and the Athenians will take on the Western Boone Stars in the second game of the night beginning at roughly 7:30.
