Last season it was Northview getting the better of Crawfordsville in overtime with a 67-61 victory. This time Crawfordsville would get back at the Knights but for a second straight year the game would go into overtime. Crawfordsville and the Knights were tied at 50-50 after regulation but the Athenians found their groove in OT outscoring Northview 13-2 to pull away for a 63-52 win.
Early on the Athenians trailed the Knights 17-6 after the opening quarter, but Crawfordsville got back in the game outscoring Northview 19-7 to take a 25-24 lead going into the locker room. It stayed a close game after three with the Athenians trailing 39-37, but the fourth and overtime belonged to CHS.
Mekhi Wallace led CHS with 16 points and 10 rebounds in the winning effort and longtime Athenian coach David Pierce was proud of how hard his team worked against a tough Knights team.
“We’re glad to get revenge,” he said. “It was tough loss at their place last year when they were really good and they’re still really good now. We started off slow and took a timeout and challenged our guys intensely and they responded. We came in with momentum after Z (Ziair Morgan) hit a three at the buzzer. It was a great team effort all they way around and everyone was ready when they were called upon in a hard and physical game.”
Cale Coursey, Ziair Morgan, and Wallace were three individuals that Pierce thought stood out against the Knights. Morgan scored 11 points and Coursey 13 while playing defense Drew Cook the Knights top scorer who averages nearly 20 points per game while Wallace went 8-9 from the field on the offensive end.
“Both of those guys had breakout nights,” Pierce said. “He’s a tough kid and I’m proud of him. We also challenged Z to play to his potential as a senior and compete at all times and we play better when does that. They couldn’t stop him and we kept going to him.”
Crawfordsville with the win improves to 11-4 on the season and will be back in action on Tuesday when they host Sagamore Conference foe Western Boone. After a 2-0 week and scoring 67 and 63 points, Pierce feels his team is starting to really get back in their groove.
“It was nice to have our guys finally healthy and that’s helped these last two games,” Pierce said. “I could see they had a fire and a pep in their step to compete tonight. If you would’ve told me we’d start the year 11-4 I’d take that all day. We just have to keep it rolling on Tuesday against WeBo. They’re a physical team and play hard. We got a good feeling about us going though so we’ll look to keep it going.”
The Athenians game against the Stars was originally scheduled to be Thursday but due to incoming weather, it’s been moved to a Tuesday game with the JV tipping off at 6 p.m. at CHS.