After dropping a pair of games to finish 1-3 in its own tournament, Columbus Christian coach Kevin Roth was left searching for answers.
Roth wasn’t happy with the way his team played in a 55-31 loss to Pleasant View Christian in Saturday’s fifth-place game of the Columbus Christian Tournament. Earlier in the day, the Crusaders had fallen to Faith Christian 61-38 in the final game of pool play.
“I told them we’re just going to go back to fundamentals and work on that, and we’re going to work on it every practice,” Roth said. “We’re going to shoot, we’re going to ball-handle, we’re going to work on passing, we’re going to work on posting up, and that’s it.”
The Crusaders (5-15) got off to a slow start against Pleasant View, falling behind 20-8 early in the second quarter. Columbus Christian scored seven in a row to cut the lead to five, but the Bulldogs stretched the lead back to 29-17 at halftime.
The Crusaders got two quick baskets from Gabe Ridder to start the third quarter, but then Pleasant View scored the next nine points and never looked back.
“We get the ball inside a couple of times there at the start of the third quarter and Gabe makes a couple of baskets,” Roth said. “Then for some unknown reason, and I haven’t figured it out yet this year, we decide we’re going to do something else.”
Ridder led Columbus Christian with six points. Garrett Spurgeon and Noah Edwards each grabbed six rebounds.
“I just told them that basketball team is not 20-some points better than us,” Roth said. “That’s my personal opinion. They didn’t outsize us. They did shoot the 3, but we knew they were going to shoot 3-pointers, and we don’t get out and defend.”
The Crusaders received some bad news Saturday morning when they found out starting forward Jacob Conrad had the flu and would be unable to play.
“He gives us some size and helps with inside stuff,” Roth said.
Ridder and Spurgeon each scored 10 points to lead Columbus Christian against Faith Christian.
The Crusaders opened the tournament by falling to Martinsville Tabernacle Christian 58-56 and beating King’s Academy 78-75 in overtime in pool play on Friday.
“I thought we played hard this afternoon against Faith and gave a lot of energy, and we played hard the game we won (on Friday),” Roth said. “We had a lot of energy, and the kids were playing hard and playing good defense. But I could tell about three minutes into the (Pleasant View) game, we didn’t have it.”
