CROTHERSVILLE
At home, Crothersville’s boys basketball team has yet to hit a snag in its schedule.
The Tigers moved to 7-0 on their own hardwood, and 12-4 on the season, with a 81-69 win against South Decatur on Tuesday.
Josh Thomas came out on fire on offense for the Tigers, scoring the team’s first seven points to give Crothersville a 7-3 lead with 5:41 left in the first quarter.
A 3-pointer by Dylan Wilson put the Tigers up five points before a 7-2 run in the final 2:04 extended the the lead to 22-14 by the end of eight minutes of play.
Thomas scored five points in the streak, and led the team with 12 points after eight minutes of play.
The Tigers went cold in the second quarter, and the Cougars took advantage.
The Cougars strung together a 10-2 run to take the lead 26-24 with 2:26 left in the half.
A basket by Wilson re-tied the game before the Tigers finished the half on a mini 5-0 run to hold a 31-28 lead at the break.
Thomas drained a 3-pointer out of intermission, but the Cougars responded with a 6-0 run to re-tie the game at 34 with 6:17 in the third quarter.
A score from Logan Brewer sparked a 13-4 run — which included 11 unanswered points — to put the Tigers ahead at 48-40 with 2:25 on the clock. In that stretch, Brewer scored six points, Thomas had five and Wilson scored two.
At the end of 24 minutes, the Tigers led 52-42.
Crothersville never gave up the lead before the final buzzer, using multiple small runs to repel the Cougars from a comeback.
Brewer scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, and the Tigers went 11-for-17 to hold on for the victory.
“They played hard and it was a good team effort,” Tigers coach Greg Kilgore said. “I thought the kids shared the ball well and played with energy. Our game plan coming in was to speed it up a little bit and force them into mistakes. We went eight or nine boys deep and they had six, and I think we fatigued them a little bit.”
Thomas led the Tigers with 29 points, Brewer scored 24 and Wilson chipped in 12.
Cooper Maple had a big night for the Cougars, leading all scorers with 31 points.
The Tigers haven’t lost back-to-back games this season and are off to the program’s best start since 1981.
“It’s a great feeling,” Kilgore said. “I’m happy for the boys. The upper and underclassmen are working hard. You look at a guy like Lane Wienhorst — he was here when we were 3-21 (in 2016). He remembers that really well. You can see him at the end of games gutting it out because he doesn’t want to go back to that.”
The Tigers will play at West Washington on Friday, and Kilgore looks forward to the challenge for the team.
“(Beating South Decatur) is huge, now going on the road,” Kilgore said. “We lost to Edinburgh, a sectional opponent, over the weekend. I told the boys in the locker room that we need to go and win at West Wash. We need to prove that we’re in the hunt for the sectional.”