SELLERSBURG — It was a tough battle for the Columbus East boys basketball team Saturday against Class 3A No. 5 Silver Creek.
The Olympians kept battling, but the Dragons proved why they are one of the best teams in 3A as they stayed unbeaten with a 73-58 win.
“(Silver Creek) is a wonderful team, and they are well-coached,” East coach Brent Chitty said. “They play very unselfishly, and they can score inside and outside. They’re relentless with their pressure. They’re a good team.”
The Olympians (1-2) had the lead on the Dragons (6-0) 8-4 early in the first quarter, but then Silver Creek went on a 14-2 run to take an 18-10 lead after the first quarter.
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A 3-pointer from Carson Whitehead cut the deficit to 18-13, but then the Dragons scored nine straight points to lead 27-13. East then scored six straight points following a Tyler Boyer 3-pointer to make it 27-19, but Silver Creek closed out the first half on a 17-4 run to lead 44-23 at halftime.
“I thought the pressure got to us a little bit in the first half,” Chitty said “I thought in the second half, we did beat them scoreboard-wise, but we need to find out how to put together four quarters together.”
The Dragons led 51-31 in the third quarter, but the Olympians went on a 7-0 run to cut it to 51-38. Silver Creek got the final bucket in the closing seconds to make it 53-38 heading into the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter, East was able to put up points on the board, but the Dragons were able to answer back and prevent the Olympians from making a rally.
East was led by Matt Frost with 18 points, 14 of which came in the second half. Whitehead scored 14 and Boyer added 11.
Trey Kaufman of Silver Creek led all scorers with 26 points.
“Our kids never quit. They battled,” Chitty said. “When you play against good teams, you have to battle for all four quarters. That is going to be one of the things we work on. We’re figuring things out. I thought we made a big jump from the first half to the second half, I really do, and that’s crucial. We have some good opponents coming up. We’ll watch film, and I think we’ll find out a lot of things about ourselves that will make us better.”
