Photo & Article by Wade Bell, Clarion News Wolfpack holds off Tell City BY WADE BELL Sports Writer 2 hrs ago 0 Wolfpack holds off Tell City Crawford County senior Brody Fish, left, fires up a shot over a Tell City defender in the second half of the of the Wolfpack’s PSC win Dec. 27 over the Marksmen. Crawford County boys’ basketball coach Jonathon Bowles knew his team was in for a tougher fight against the Tell City Marksmen in evening rounds of the Perry-Spencer Holiday Classic on Dec. 27 than what the Corydon Central Panthers had put the Marksmen through. Tell City had two starters missing in the morning session but had them back again for the evening rounds, and Bowles knew that would make a difference. “They’re going to be a different team,” Bowles said after the Perry Central game. “We talked about that. In these tournaments sometimes, you’ve got to get hungry to get that bad taste out of your mouth. If you don’t come in hungry and you’re still sulking and thinking about the results of that other game, that can get you in trouble. But with our process-driven mindset, I’m confident we’ll be ready to go.” The game turned into a battle with the last two minutes becoming the final factor as Crawford County came away with a 53-49 win. “Our guys found a way to get it done,” said Bowles. “We had big rebounds down the stretch by multiple guys. Wyatt (Hensley) gets up there and hits two big free throws when we needed to put the game away. I just couldn’t be prouder.” Crawford County pushed out to a 7-2 advantage to begin the game. The Marksmen scrambled back, and Eli Kleeman drilled a three to put Tell City up by one. Crawford County went back up by three on a deuce and pair of free throws, but Kleeman drilled a second three and the game was notched up at 12-all at the end of the period. Braxton Bowman poured in the next seven for the Wolfpack, who went up by five, 19-14. Crawford County’s lead later went up to eight, but Kleeman countered with two deuces, cutting the Marksmen’s deficit to four. Landon Sines scored inside at the end of the period, and Crawford County went to the locker room with a six-point advantage, 25-19, with two quarters to go. “I hate to make excuses for our guys, but we had some guys play extremely hard in both of these games, and I think you started to see that take place,” said Bowles. “Tell City had to do the same thing. They had two guys that didn’t get to play in that first game, and they made a huge difference.” Bowman scored all of Crawford County’s 11 points in the third quarter, but the Marksmen had caught fire, answering each basket. Late in the period, Gabe Kleeman and Eli Kleeman both drilled threes as Tell City went out in front. Riley Leinenbach added a deuce, and Crawford County found itself down by three with one quarter to go. The two teams traded baskets in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, then Thomas Harper drilled a Crawford County three to put the Wolfpack back in front by two. Gabe Kleeman countered with a jumper to tie the game at 45. Crawford County tightened its defense in the final two minutes. The two teams swapped points again until Hensley and Bowman put in four free throws for a 53-47 Wolfpack lead. Tell City got one more basket but ran out of clock, and the Wolfpack had the 53-49 win. “I felt like, at times during that third quarter, we were making the right plays, running the right stuff and just couldn’t get it in,” Bowles said. “We had a couple of easy bunnies that, for whatever reason, didn’t go in. I loved our effort. Our effort is there. They’re playing extremely hard. We’ve just got to clean up the execution a little bit, but it will be nice to watch film and know that the outcome was a win.” The Crawford County coach said his team’s defense was key in the final two minutes. “It was good team defense,” he said. “We were talking, and then I thought Ian Sturgeon all day brought his defense down the stretch. (Eli Kleeman) was going off and hitting a lot of threes, and he shot two towards the end and Ian made them tough. They set some flare screens for him, and they set some elevator screens for him and Ian was right there, so it was a great job by him.” Bowman led the Wolfpack with 27 points. Crawford County put in 20 of 47 shots from the field (43%) and 8 of 13 turnovers. The Wolfpack still had a problem with turnovers, coughing up the ball 20 times for the 32 minutes of play. Bowles praised freshman Harper for playing tough in his first games on the varsity squad. “Thomas Harper is a kid who has not played a single varsity minute until today,” Bowles said. “He’s played a little bit against Perry (Central), and I liked what he did against Perry (Central). We’ve liked what he’s done in practice. The guys believe in him, so he’s going to slowly work his way in a little more. He’s an offensive threat for us. He’s long. He can go help us get rebounds, and he works extremely hard.” Eli Kleeman led the Marksmen with 18 points, and Gabe Kleeman added 13. Tell City put in 20 of 52 from the field (38%) and 2 of 6 from the charity stripe. The Marksmen finished with 14 turnovers for the game. “We’re starting to rebound better,” said Bowles. “We blocked out extremely well. The free throws were a little bit better. Some stuff we’ve got to clean up is we had too many turnovers tonight. Other things are we got some silly fouls. We get ourselves out of position sometimes defensively because we jump around, and that’s something we’d like to clean up as well.” With the win, the Wolfpack moved on to last Monday's placement games at Heritage Hills to face Evansville Christian. The Eagles held off the Wolfpack 62-58 in the fifth-place game. Crawford County 12 13 11 17 - 53 Tell City 12 7 20 10 - 49 Crawford County - Bowman 27, Decker 8, Sines 6, Fish 4, Harper 3, Hensley 3, Richardson 2. Tell City - E. Kleeman 18, G. Kleeman 13, James 8, Leinenbach 6, Gebhard 4. 3-point goals - Crawford County 2 (Bowman 2); Tell City 7 (E. Kleeman 4, G. Kleeman 2, James 1).