Columbus Christian used a furious second-half comeback to make things close in its boys basketball season opener Monday night.
But the Columbus Hawks, a team made up of Homeschooled kids from Columbus, Brown County and Whiteland, was able to hold on for its first win of the season, a 77-73 road victory.
The Hawks (1-2) had opened the season with a pair of losses to teams from Kentucky on Saturday in Louisville.
“We played better, but we played two very, very good teams on Saturday,” Hawks coach Jerry Lancaster said. “Both teams were considerably better than us, but we did definitely play better tonight.”
The Hawks had a considerable size advantage with 6-foot-6 senior center Noah Armstrong, 6-4 sophomore forward Jack Farnsley and 6-2 junior forward Hudson Joy. That trio combined for 32 rebounds to lead the Hawks to a 60-43 advantage on the boards.
The Crusaders, meanwhile, started only one player taller than 5-6, and that was 6-0 junior Josh Jones.
“We do have good size,” Lancaster said. “Rebounding is something we’re still very much a work in progress right now. We’re trying to get the kids to understand good rebounding position a little better than they do. They rely a little too much on their height, but we’re getting there.”
The first quarter featured six lead changes, the last coming when Columbus Christian junior C.J. Reed hit a 3-pointer to give the Crusaders a 16-14 lead at the first stop.
The Hawks then scored the first 13 points of the second quarter to take control. They built the lead to 39-25 at halftime.
“The second quarter I felt like really hurt us,” Columbus Christian coach Kevin Roth said. “Their size hurt us a little bit.”
The Hawks extended their lead to as big as 49-31 with 4:30 left in the third quarter. They still led 55-41 in the final minute of the period before the Crusaders went on a 12-2 run to close to within 57-53 on a 3-pointer by sophomore Garrett Spurgeon with 6:28 left in the game.
Junior point guard Caleb Dukes then scored eight points in a 10-1 run that put the Hawks in front 71-58. But Columbus Christian came back with a 10-0 run, sparked by two 3s from junior C.J. Reed and another 3 from Spurgeon, to but it to 71-68 with 52 seconds remaining.
A pair of free throws by Dukes pushed the lead back to five. Two free throws by senior Conner Emily pulled the Crusaders back within 73-70 with 32 seconds left, but Dukes hit two more free throws, and Joy added two more to ice it.
“We talked about in the locker room, instead of trying to come down and get us back in the game shooting 3s, I felt like with our driving ability, we should (score), but we didn’t do a good job of finishing at the rim,” Roth said. “I felt like that we were trying too hard to get a foul called rather than just doing what we should do by finishing at the rim.”
Reed finished with 30 points and Emily added 20 points — all in the second half — and 20 rebounds to lead Columbus Christian. Jones added 10 points and 10 rebounds.
“We’ll get better,” Roth said. “Conner Emily and C.J. and Josh have been under that kind of fire, but the rest of them were kind of new.”
Dukes also finished with 30 points to lead the Hawks. Farnsley added 23 points and 17 rebounds, and Armstrong had 15 points.
The Hawks are a first-year varsity program after going 20-13 at the JV level last year.
“I think we might take a step backward this year just because of the competition,” Lancaster said. “But what we’re really trying to do this year is just establish our varsity. We only have one senior on the team, so we’re looking to have almost all these guys back again next year.”
