By Wade Bell In a game that saw a combined total of 50 turnovers and bodies leaving the gymnasium with a lot of bruises, the Crawford County Lady Pack pulled away from host Lanesville to improve their season record to 10-2 for the year, a night after winning an important conference game on the road at Mitchell. Both teams fought hard but, in the end, it was the Lady Pack who got a big enough cushion to take home their 10th win of the year. “What I’m so proud of this team is we’re sitting here at 10-2 and nobody thought this team would be that way,” said Crawford County coach Chris Broughton. “We’ve done it because we’ve had each individual players at different times step up and do it. That’s when you tell somebody that you’ve got to grind out this win. You’ve got to gut it out. That’s what that means. Different people are going to step up at different times of the season so far, and that’s what I’m most proud of.” “Every time we had an opportunity we couldn’t take advantage to close that game,” said Lanesville coach Jamie Kolkmeier. “We had it to six in the third quarter, three possessions where we didn’t score, and, the next thing you know, it goes back up to 12. We didn’t execute well on offense.” The game began with the two teams trading points through the first few minutes of the first quarter, the game tied at 8-8. Crawford County then got a foothold, taking advantage of Lanesville’s turnovers, and finished out the quarter with a 9-0 burst and had a 17-8 lead at the end of the period. Alli Campbell scored first for the Lady Eagles to start the second quarter, but Emery Stroud gave the Lady Pack back-to-back threes and a free throw for good measure for a 24-10 lead. Sylvia Ferriell later tacked on a Crawford County deuce for a 16-point advantage. Ava Simler gave Lanesville two in the paint, and Madelyn Magner hit a three at the buzzer, Lanesville down 11, 26-15, at the half. The glaring stat that hurt Lanesville the most was the 11 turnovers in the first quarter. “We turned it over a lot more times than we wanted to,” Kolkmeier said. “We’re trying to clean that up. We’ve got to get better at that. We talked about bad passes, but our receivers don’t do a good job of presenting themselves or moving. We got stuck in spots a little bit and put our passers in tough positions. Then the passer gets a little panicked and throws it too soon. You’ve got to know your receiver is going to move as well, and I think we get stuck playing in lines with the defense, which you can’t do.” Crawford County faired only a little better for turnovers with seven in the first quarter. Both teams had four each in the second period. “We did some things that was uncharacteristic,” Broughton said. “We had too many turnovers, but I thought we grinded it out. We had a big conference game last night on the road, and this is the first time this year we’ve played back to back, so we were going to be a little tired, a little gassed. We’ve got Emmy not being able to play for a week or two. She’s not back in playing shape yet, so we knew it was going to be one of those games where you had to gut it out.” Crawford County had seven turnovers again in the third period, and Lanesville took advantage this time with an 8-2 run to close the gap to six, 30-24, Crawford County going just one of eight shooting in the period. Fouls began to mount up for both teams with Lanesville’s Libby Saier drawing her fourth and Crawford County’s Stroud and Abie Adams getting called for their third fouls with just over a minute to go in the period. Lanesville won the quarter but was still down nine, 33-24, with eight minutes to go. Crawford County boosted its cushion early in the final period with a 9-0 run to lead 42-24. Lanesville made a short offensive run in the last part of the period but was in just too deep of hole to crawl out of, the Lady Pack getting the 46-33 win. “We missed a lot of shots period,” Kolkmeier said. “When you struggle shooting, you’ve got to clean up your defense. We’re not a great big team anyway, but then we’re paying a lot of attention to Emery that we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds and that helped their shooting percentage. It wasn’t like they shot it great, but they were able to clean up a few and go back in. They had a couple of girls make shots when they had to make a few that would keep them the lead or build that lead a little bit.” Broughton said he was most proud of his players taking a bruising during the physical matchup but coming back out on the floor to keep the team going. “It was a physical game, and you talk about toughness, those are two of our senior leaders (Stroud and Adams) that you’ve got to have,” said the Crawford County coach. “They wanted to be in the game and wanted to play for their teammates. That’s what’s important. That’s how you lead by example. When people see them doing that, it shows another reason why we’re 10-2.” Stroud led all scorers with 16 for the game, and Adams followed with 11 points. Crawford County didn’t shoot the ball well, hitting 14 of 46 from the field (30%) but connected on 15 of 22 free throws. The Lady Pack finished the game with 22 turnovers. Broughton said his team has to keep going with both the physical and mental toughness. “We’ve got to keep developing that part of the team, and we’ve got to be able to come together here,” he said. “Right now, we’ve got everybody on the boat. Nobody can get off the boat; everybody has to stay on. We’ve got it going in the right direction, and that’s what the big focus is going to be in the next couple of weeks.” Magner led the Lady Eagles with 12 points for the game, and Simler had nine points. Lanesville shot the ball a little better, hitting 13 of 38 field goals (34%) but put in just 3 of 11 free throws. The Lady Eagles finished with 28 turnovers for the 32 minutes. “I thought Madelyn Magner played her best game for us of the year by far,” Kolkmeier said. “The second through third quarters she carried us. She kept us in the game for a while and got a bunch of steals right there in a short time frame. She competed really hard and had her best game. She worked the zone in the middle better than anyone else we had. We just didn’t get enough with it tonight.” “Give credit to Jamie,” said Broughton. “He had a good game plan. We hadn’t seen a lot of 1-3-1 defense this year. When you have a conference game on Wednesday night that’s a makeup, we’ve got no practice prep to work on our 1-3-1 zone offense. So, you try to get it in after school today for 20 minutes. Give credit to them for playing good defense. “They took care of the ball pretty good when we were pressing and getting after them," he said. "But, overall, I think we were able to get out and get some easy baskets and we got contributions from a lot of different people. That’s what was the difference in the game.” Crawford County 17 9 7 13 - 46 Lanesville 8 7 9 9 - 33 Crawford County - Stroud 16, Adams 11, Stephenson 9, Lamar 7, Ferriell 2, Ingle 1. Lanesville - Mad. Magner, 12, Simler, 9, James 3, Romeo 3, Saier 3, Campbell 2, May. Magner 1. 3-point goals - Crawford County 3 (Stroud 2, Stephenson 1); 5 Lanesville (Mad. Magner 2, James 1, May. Magner 1, Saier 1).