WAVERLY - It was always going to be a physical contest between the Carrollton Hawks and Pawnee Indians in the quarterfinals of the Waverly Holiday Tournament on Monday.
For the Indians it was an opportunity to get some type of revenge because the Hawks ended their football season over seven weeks ago.
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Opportunity knocked for Pawnee as they upset the number one seeded Hawks 58-50 and advance to play Raymond Lincolnwood-Morrisonville at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Carrollton will meet up with the 15-seeded Triopia Trojans at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
The two teams met 10 days ago on Dec. 18 where Carrollton prevailed 67-48.
The Hawks had a balanced scoring output with Cole Brannan and Jeremy Watson tallying 13 points, while Luke Gillingham added 10.
On the other side Garrett Gillette led all scorers with 20 points, 14 of them came in the second half.
Trenton Eckert paced him with 13 and Austin Galloway, the Indians leading scorer of the season, finished with 10.
“When it’s all said and done we held him [Galloway] to 10 points and Gillette stepped up and had a great game. They had a couple other guys hit big shots,” Carrollton head coach Jeff Krumwiede said.
With Pawnee’s superior size and strength compared to Carrollton’s speed and athleticism it was a tough game for both sides and the game was close and in doubt for virtually the whole way.
The Indians led the Hawks 17-13 after the first quarter, but Carrollton would go on a 13-4 run to start out the second term.
The Hawks biggest lead of the game was 27-21 after Brannan converted a one-on-one, but it was uphill from there on out.
Eckert scored all six of his points late in the second quarter and none bigger was his 17-foot shot he sank at the buzzer to tie the game at 29 at halftime.
The Indians stormed out to a 7-0 run as Gillette and Galloway paced Pawnee.
Carrollton, who usually operates under a man-to-man defense, instilled a three-two zone to limit Galloway and essentially force Pawnee’s guards to beat them.
Galloway only made two baskets, but the likes of Gillette, Eckert, and Jordan Hampton stepped up, especially in the second half.
It was a feisty game in terms of fouling and Krumwiede overall wasn’t happy with the way the officials were calling the game.
“It affects the way we play and against Pawnee we have to play fast, we have to be able to press, we have to able to force turnovers,” Krumwiede said. “When you can’t defend with proximity to an offensive player it takes away what we try to do.”
A potential key turning point occurred with two minutes and 14 seconds to go in the third when Jerrett Smith was called for his fourth foul as he was defending Galloway.
He was visibly frustrated with the call and a referee issued a technical foul on him, which was his fifth and final foul.
Krumwiede was upset with Smith’s reaction, but understood his anger.
“Jerrett’s frustration was built for all us,” Krumwiede said. “I’m not forgiving his technical foul, but his frustration exemplified what everyone was feeling.”
To add insult to injury Pawnee shot four free throws and got the ball, however the Hawks got a big break as Galloway and Gillette collectively made one free throw out of the four shots and didn’t score on the following possession.
Pawnee was 15 out of 25 from the charity stripe while Carrollton was five for six.
“The effort, the hustle, the intangibles were there for us, but you can’t overcome the constant parade to the foul line by the opposing team,” Krumwiede said.
Carrollton trailed 45-37 going into the fourth quarter and quickly cut the lead in half which the Indians to call timeout with 7:03 to play, but that’s as close as the Hawks would get.
Pawnee responded after their timeout with a one-on-one to go up by seven again and did a great job of killing the clock on offense.
Although they did well with not letting the Indians run away with it, the Hawks couldn’t put a dent in Pawnee’s lead on offense.
“We’re 21 out of 61 [from the field] and we can’t get anybody hot,” Krumwiede said. “We may have forced a few, but for the most part we got some pretty good looks, and several times we got second chances and good looks.”
On a side note going into tomorrow’s game, Luke Gillingham needs 14 points to reach 1,000 points for his career and there is a good chance he will eclipse the mark against Triopia.
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