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CARROLLTON - The Carrollton Hawks were defeated by the West Central Cougars 63-50 in Carrollton on Friday night.
The Hawks go to 8-12 and 3-4 in the WIVC. The Cougars improve to 23-4 and 8-1 in conference play.
West Central previously dismantled Carrollton 72-38 in the first round of the Waverly Tournament, but the game was completely different this time around although the result was the same.
“I thought that if we could shorten the game up a little bit against [West Central] because they’re good offensively at every position,” Carrollton head coach Matt Goetten said. “I wanted to take the air out of the ball in the first half, and I thought we did a nice job. Our energy was good.”
The Hawks were led by Gabe Jones yet again with 18 points for the second straight game. Ethan Brannan finished with eight points while Jacob Graner, Nathan Walker, and Garrett Settles all added seven.
Sophomore Cole Howard finished with 12 points for the Cougars. Two more tenth graders Drew Evans and Gabe Cox each scored 11. Derrick Montgomery led all scorers with 19 points and was a force down low almost all game long.
“We had no answer for him,” Goetten said. “We threw Blake [Struble] and Gabe at him, and he was getting to his position whenever he wanted to. He’s a nice, smooth player and he’s got a good shooting stroke too, but he killed us down there.”
Walker scored five points in the first quarter, and the Hawks led 8-7 through one quarter. The Hawks did much better at breaking the Cougars full-court press, which destroyed them back in December.
West Central eventually overtook Carrollton’s lead and led 25-20 at halftime despite Jones, the Hawks leading scorer coming into the game battling foul trouble.
“Gabe sits eight minutes in the first half, and you say I’m down by five I like that. I liked where we were at,” Goetten said.
Then came the West Central run.
After Jones buried a three-pointer to put the Hawks within two points, the Cougars went on a 10-0 run and would lead 45-34 going into the final quarter. West Central expanded their lead to 54-38 and made a couple of three-point shots, which they had struggled to convert all game long.
“We knew they would go on a run and [West Central] is an explosive team and if not the best in the conference. In the third quarter, the dam kinda broke open. When they’re scoring in transition, they’re very hard to beat.” Goetten said. “We played well enough to win, but didn’t hit enough shots.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
