Carter Patterson
The good news for Columbus East is that it outscored Class 2A No. 6 Southwestern (Hanover) by one point in the second half Saturday night.
The bad news for the Olympians is that they had fallen behing by 24 at halftime against the hot-shooting Rebels. As a result, East endured its first loss of the season, a 70-47 boys basketball setback.
“I thought we did much better in the second half,” East coach Perry Nash said. “I don’t think early, we were ready to play, and that solely falls on me. I have to make sure our guys are ready to go.”
Southwestern (3-0) hit 6 of 8 3-pointers in the first quarter in jumping out to a 23-7 lead. The Rebels extended the margin to 39-15 at halftime.
“We didn’t guard the ball very well at all,” Nash said. “We kind of pride ourself on the man-to-man defense and getting after it. They caused a lot of issues with us early where I just don’t think we sat down and guarded like we were capable of.”
The Olympians (2-1) opened the third quarter with an 8-2 run to cut the lead to 18. But that is as close as they would get.
“The one thing we talked about at halftime was, we didn’t care about Xs and Os,” Nash said. “We talked about being able to compete, communicate and celebrate, and it’s about our whole team. We got away from that the first half. The second half, they got back to that. They were cheering each other on, they were getting each other involved, they were competing and for us, we let the score take care of itself. We just have to to be able to do that the first half.”
Carter Patterson led East with 12 points. Mason Reeves scored 11 points, Keaton Lawson had nine points and five rebounds and Jack Fischvogt added eight points.
Southwestern outrebounded the Olympians 31-21 and had 15 turnovers to East’s 11.
“Every loss, you have to learn something,” Nash said. “Otherwise, it’s not good. I think we hit our breaking point, and I think that’s a positive because anytime you hit your breaking point, you have the ability to push that breaking point farther. Now, we have a whole week of practice to be able work on that and to push that breaking point, talk about it, teach it, learn from it and get better.”
Southwestern (Hanover) 70, Columbus East 47
Southwestern;23;16;11;20;—;70
Columbus East;7;8;15;17;—;47
Southwestern (3-0): Jackson Taylor 2 1-2 6, Adam Traylor 0 0-0 0, Peyton Cloud 5 0-0 12, Braxton Lewis 0 0-0 0, Brady Cook 6 3-4 18, Landon Higgins 0 0-0 0, William Stockdale 0 0-0 0, Caleb Seals 0 0-0 0, Isaac Watson 1 0-0 3, Caleb Goode 0 0-0 0, Jamison Lewis 5 10-15 23, Landon Kidwell 3 2-2 8. Totals: 22 16-23 70.
Columbus East (2-1): Jayden Thompson 0 0-0 0, Mason Reeves 4 0-0 11, Anthony Cowan 0 0-0 0, Danny Coriden 0 0-0 0, Elum VanEst 0 0-0 0, Jack Fischvogt 3 0-0 8, Ethan Bumbalough 0 0-0 0, Kadin Lobdell 1 0-0 3, Keaton Lawson 4 0-0 9, Alex Duncan 0 0-0 0, Carter Patterson 5 2-6 12, Grayson Watters 0 0-0 0. Totals: 19 2-6 47.
3-point goals: Southwestern 10 (Cook 3, Lewis 3, Cloud 2, Taylor, Watson); Columbus East 7 (Reeves 3, Fischvogt, Lobdell, Lawson).
