COLUMBIA – Civic Memorial opened its schedule in the Columbia-Freeburg Holiday basketball Tournament in good form Wednesday afternoon, getting 20 points from Caden Clark as the Eagles defeated Waterloo Gibault 54-36 to go to 8-3 on the season; the Hawks fell to 2-8 on the year.
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The game started out fairly even in the first half; the Hawks held a 13-11 lead at quarter time on CM before the Eagles managed to pull ahead 25-22 at the long break.
“We wanted to speed them up defensively and offensively,” Eagle coach Ross Laux said of CM's game plan against the Hawks, “not that we were bad in the first half, we missed a bunch of bodies – bodies on threes and bodies close – and that kind of affected defensively and getting back on transition when they got a bunch of easy ones.
“We were able to put the ball in the basket in the second half which always makes that defense get a pep in that step.”
That pep certainly helped at the start of the second half when the Eagles got on a run that broke the game open. “I felt like we were a little slow in the first half; in the second half, we were able to create some pressure, created some turnovers and got some easy layups and used that momentum, that energy – that's really what we did,” Laux said.
The run that broke open the game sent the Eagles into a 43-25 lead leading into the final quarter and kept the momentum going; Gibault couldn't find a way to catch CM in that final eight minutes. Clark and Bryce Zupan carried CM most of the way in the run with big scores to keep Gibault at bay.
Besides Clark's 20 points, Zupan added 13 points and Geoff Withers had nine on the day for the Eagles; the Hawks were led by Karson Huels' 17 points. Tournament play continues for the Eagles today as they meet co-host Freeburg at 1 p.m. today and other co-host Columbia at 5:30 p.m. Friday; the final is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
