Community Christian outhustled Columbus Christian throughout much of Tuesday night’s boys basketball contest.
The Eagles went ahead by digits quickly, and the Crusaders couldn’t recover in a 50-37 loss.
“Tonight when we came out, I feel like that our execution and effort wasn’t where we needed it to be,” Columbus Christian coach Kevin Roth said. “We get down, and then we miss a shot or make a bad pass and then it just went downhill from there.”
The Crusaders (5-5) fell behind 12-2 midway through the first quarter. A C.J. Reed 3-pointer cut it to 12-5, but then Community Christian (6-1) answered right back with a 3 of its own to go back ahead 15-5. The Eagles led 18-7 after the first quarter.
Columbus Christian got a little bit of offense going in the second quarter when Shelton Hawkins put in a couple of baskets to cut the lead to 18-12. That was as close as the Crusaders got for the rest of the game.
Later in the second quarter, with Columbus Christian trailing 22-14, a 3 from Community Christian kick-started a 10-0 run to end the first half leading 32-14.
Toward the end of the third quarter and the fourth quarter, Roth decided bring in the second unit to finish out the game. They rose to the occasion and finished out the third on a 5-2 run to make it 45-21. The Crusaders then scored the first six points of the fourth quarter to make it 45-27 until the Eagles drained a 3-point shot to halt the quick scoring run to make it 48-27.
Columbus Christian then went on a 10-0 run, but time wasn’t on the Crusaders’ side.
“At the start of the third quarter, I thought maybe we’d get some energy and talked about the things that we needed to do,” Roth said. “We came out, and we just couldn’t do anything, so I thought it was time to give the guys that don’t see playing time some action. They started coming out, and they were hustling and rebounding.”
Hawkins scored a team-high 13 points off the bench for the Crusaders, while Reed added seven. Derek Briscoe scored a game-high 16 points, and Jimmy King added 11 for the Eagles.
