Girls basketball: Crystal Lake Central edges Harvest Christian
First year Crystal Lake Central girls basketball coach Derek Crabill is probably hoping all of his halftime talks and adjustments go as well as they did in his debut on Monday night.
The Tigers overcame a 10-point halftime deficit and 20 first-half turnovers to defeat host Harvest Christian 49-47 in the opening round of the Bill Knox Thanksgiving Invite.
"We really had a lot of nerves in the first half," Crabill said. "We have a really young team with a new coach and a new system. But I just told them at halftime that now that we got the nerves out of the way let's get back to work and start doing the things we know we can do. Even though we were down by 10 at the half it didn't feel like we were down by that much. We knew if we just settled down we could get back in it."
The Tigers trailed 27-17 at the half, but went on a 17-5 run to pull ahead 32-31 on a 3-pointer by sophomore Maddie Haslow with 2:32 left in the third quarter. Haslow and Cori Hamill each had 6 points in the third quarter to spearhead the Central comeback.
Harvest regained the lead 34-32 on a 3-pointer from Jenn Kasper with 1:40 left in the third quarter. The Lions retained the lead until late in the fourth quarter when Central pulled even at 43-43 on a pair of free throws from Elise Olsen with 3:12 left to play. Moments later Jane Johnsey nailed a 3-pointer to give the Tigers the lead for good 46-43.
"We had a lot of adrenaline going in the first half and we were making a lot of mistakes," Haslow said. "But the second half we got it under control and started not rushing as much. Coming back like this gives us a lot of confidence and shows what we can do."
After only turning the ball over 3 times in the first half the Lions had 14 turnovers in the second half. Central also shut down point guard Alyssa Iverson. She finished with 20 points, but 17 of those came in the first half.
"We were clicking early, but our biggest issue is we are really young," Harvest coach Rich DeTamble said. "They started denying Alyssa the ball and we had a hard time getting it into her hands. But we learned a lot from this game and we will use that moving forward."