CEDARVILLE — Whether it was the excitement of playing in a home game for the first time this season, or if it was the intensity that comes along with playing an Ohio Heritage Conference battle, the shots just weren’t falling for the host Cedarville Indians in the early going of their Dec. 6 game with visiting London Madison-Plains.
The host Indians outscored the Golden Eagles 40-29 in the second half to earn a 68-55 win, at Cedarville High.
“I think we had a stretch where we were taking care of the ball better (in the second half). We felt like, when we were taking care of the ball, we were getting good looks. We weren’t hitting some of our good looks, whether it was inside or outside, and then we turned the ball over too many times for us to be consistent,” Godlove said. “We didn’t do a great job of it, but we did a better job of taking care of the basketball in the second half, and the shots started falling for us as well.”
Madison-Plains led 28-26 at the halftime break, thanks in part to a 10-point first-half performance by C.J. Crawford, six points from Aydn Gammell and five each from Paul Bryant and Wes Stires. But Crawford and Bryant didn’t score in the second half. Matt Johnson scored all but two of his points in the second half, to lead M-P with 12 points scored. Gammell ended up with 11 points, and Crawford had his 10.
Cedarville went on an 11-3 run with five minutes left in the third quarter, then they added an 8-0 run early on in the fourth, to pull away from the Golden Eagles for good.
Leading the Indians was standout sharpshooter Colby Cross, who finished with a game-high 24 points, 14 of which came in the second half. Isaiah Ramey scored 12 of his 17 points in the second half, and Trent Koning almost got himself into double-digit scoring with nine points.
“(Madison-Plains) plays really smart basketball,” Godlove said. “They really slowed the game’s pace down, and they were getting good looks at the basket. We gave up 19 points in that second quarter. And so for us, once we were able to get the lead, it caused them to press a little bit more, which changed the whole pace and the whole momentum of the game.”
Cedarville is now 2-1 overall, and 1-0 in the OHC. The Indians have the weekend off, and they’ll get back into conference play on Tuesday, Dec. 10 when they head to Springfield to take on Catholic Central for a 7:30 p.m. battle in the Jason Collier gym.
Madison-Plains (1-1, 0-1 OHC) also has an OHC contest on Tuesday. The Golden Eagles will host South Charleston Southeastern at 7:30 p.m.
