The 17th Annual boys Sugar Creek Classic took front and center stage on Friday night at Crawfordsville High School. Game two on the night featured the Western Boone Stars taking on the Crawfordsville Athenians. CHS was looking to punch their ticket to yet another championship game but first had to take care of a gritty Stars squad. The night belonged to junior big man Alec Saidian who scored 26 points to help lead the Athenians past the Stars 56-49.
WeBo got out to an early 12-4 lead thank to a pair of Gavin Hawkins threes. Cville weathered the storm well going on 18-4 run to take the lead. They ended the second quarter taking a 27-21 lead into the locker room. WeBo then scored eight straight of their own and evened up the game at 31-31 with 3:05 left in the third. Cville held a 39-36 lead heading into the crucial final frame. Cville scored the first four to extend their lead to eight 44-36 and WeBo would get as close as four multiple times in the final eight minutes but could never grab the late lead.
“We wanted to get to the rim and get easy looks and I was thankful that my teammates found me in the right spot most of the night,” Saidian said of his 26 point game. “We’ve put a lot of work in this year of getting me the confidence of shooting those shots and I was feeling good tonight and thankfully was able to have the game that I did.”
Saidian was a very efficient 11-17 on the night and grabbed six rebounds as well. Ethan McLemore scored in double figures with 10 points and just missed a double-double with nine rebounds. Both Kaden Patton and Tyson Fuller scored eight for CHS while Mason McCarty added three.
“We told our guys entering the fourth quarter to start pushing the tempo because we felt like WeBo was getting a little tired,” Crawfordsville coach David Pierce said. “Our gameplan was to work it inside and it wasn’t working early, but we stuck with it and Alec went off for 26. He didn’t get frustrated and get down on himself for missing some early ones. He was huge for us when we needed him to be. Tyson Fuller did a phenomenal job on the defensive side against (Marcus) Fortner who was their leading scorer.”
Western Boone (2-7) was led in scoring by both Tristyn Faulk’s 11. Marcus Fortner and Hawkins who ended with 10 points. Quinn Westerfield and Luke Adkins both added six, Phillip Talbott four and Drew Gott two. What plagued the Stars in the loss was going 4-17 from the free-throw line. Every time they seemed to draw close by getting fouled, they couldn’t take advantage at the charity stripe.
“That’s just miserable shooting that portly from the line,” Stars coach Dustin Oakley said. “It’s something that happens usually just once or twice in a season but it sucks that it happened tonight. Our shot selection in the fourth quarter wasn’t as good as it needed to be either. I was proud of how some of the other guys stepped up with how tightly they were guarding Marcus. Gavin and Tristyn both played well and Quinn Westerfield came alive a little bit in the second half. We did some good things but have to put it all together for a full 32.”
For the game the Stars shot 20-49 (40.8%) from the floor, 5-15 (33.3%) from three to go along with that not so nice number of 4-17 (23.5%) from the line. They grabbed 36 rebounds and turned the ball over 10 times.
Crawfordsville (5-4) in the win shot 22-47 (47%) from the field, but just 3-13 (23%) from three. The Athenians were 11-19 (58%) from the free throw line and grabbed 31 rebound while turning it over seven times.
CHS advances to Saturday’s championship game against county rival Southmont who defeated North Montgomery 48-35 in game one while the Stars will take on the Chargers in the consolation game. It’ll be a re-match of last year’s championship game where the Mounties came out on top in a low scoring 32-30 affair.
“It’s going to be a flat out dog fight with South,” Pierce said of the championship game. “I was really impressed with their defense and then Coach Byrum has them just sprinting in transition. It’s going to be a fast-paced game and whoever manages turnovers the best will likely come out on top.”
