Shawnee’s Heaven Watkins tries to maneuver past Crestview’s Kennedy Crider during Tuesday night’s game.
Chris Howell | The Lima News
CONVOY — With Grace Freiberger and Sydney Burris sporting crutches on the bench, Shawnee struggled to make anything happen on offense during a 62-22 loss to fourth-ranked Crestview on Tuesday night.
Frieberger missed her first game after tweaking a knee last Saturday against St. Marys and she’s considered to be out indefinitely pending an evaluation of the injury.
Without their all-time leading scorer, Shawnee (7-9) shot just 8 of 34 from the field and turned the ball over 16 times.
Crestview (16-2) entered the game on the heels of a Thursday night win over Delphos Jefferson, one that put them back in the mix for the NWC title.
Crestview coach Mark Gregory said that the main focus for his team since the win over Jefferson has been to avoid any type of let-down loss this week.
“That’s something that we’ve talked about (since Thursday) and it’s one thing to talk about, but it’s another to do it,” he said. “We had some struggles making some shots early in the first quarter, but we tried to focus on our effort and energy. In the third quarter, I thought we did just about everything well.”
The Knights removed all doubt from the outcome of Tuesday night’s matchup with a 27-0 run to start the second half, holding Shawnee scoreless until the 2:56 mark of the fourth quarter.
Cali Gregory led all scorers with 25 points on the evening. Gregory is now just 38 points shy of breaking Crestview’s career scoring record.
Myia Etzler added 10 points and eight rebounds for the Knights.
Shawnee got a team-high eight points from Alexis Whetstone.
Crestview forced 11 first-half turnovers, nine in the first quarter alone, on their way to building up a 33-16 lead by the break.
“We wanted to pressure the ball without fouling and I thought we did a good job of that. For the most part, I thought we did a really good job of being solid defensively. Deflections happen out of that, then you get steals which lead to fast-break layups. That’s where we can be really dangerous.”
The Knights shot 24 of 49 from the floor, good for 49%, and won the rebounding battle 35-10.
Crestview 62, Shawnee 22
Score by quarters:
Shawnee 8 8 0 6 – 22
Crestview 20 13 20 9 – 62
Shawnee
Alexis Whetstone 8, Kamryn Morris 4, Haileigh Stump 4, Morgan Betts 2, Brynn Patterson 2, Anna Menke 2, Total 8-5-22
Crestview
Cali Gregory 25, Myia Etzler 10, Ellie Kline 6, Kaci Gregory 6, Haley McCoy 5, Kennedy Crider 5, Josie Kulwicki 5, Total 24-11-62
3-pointers — SH: A Whetstone 1; CV: C. Gregory 1.
Records — Shawnee 7-9, 4-2 WBL; Crestview 16-2, 5-1 NWC
