North Putnam Cougars drop tough test on road to Athenians 53-42

North Putnam senior Jordan Nauert blocks a layup attempt by Crawfordsville's Shad Conrad during Monday's game. Nauert had three blocks total. (Banner Graphic/GRANT WIEMAN)

CRAWFORDSVILLE -- The North Putnam boys' basketball team traveled to Crawfordville High School to take on the Athenians on Monday night in a makeup game from earlier this month.

The Cougars looked to earn their first win against the Athenians since the 2006-07 season but their hopes were dashed as they lost 53-42

"We played extremely hard and we did a great job of attacking the basketball. We would have loved to get to the free throw line a lot more, we knew they were a team that liked to pressure and foul," North Putnam head coach Lukas Haworth said.

Neither North Putnam (4-3, 1-0 West Central) nor Crawfordsville (3-5) seemed like it wanted to be aggressive on offense in the first quarter as the score after the frame was just 10-8.

In the first quarter the Cougars had good ball movement, though, and assisted on all four made field goals. The Athenians, on the other hand, only had one assist on their four made baskets.

Crawfordsville managed to adjust their defense for the second period and only allowed North Putnam to get off five shots total in the quarter, three of which went in.

The Cougars trailed at half 20-19, but were able to get back the lead at the end of the third quarter, 32-30. The Athenians defense did a good job limiting the shot attempts for the Cougars again in the third. Only attempting eight total shots in the quarter, the Cougars made four and, coupling that with good free throw shooting, the Cougars actually outscored the Athenians by three.

North Putnam had problems stopping the Athenian offense in the last quarter and it got outscored by 13 points in the final frame.

Crawfordsville finally figured out how to take advantage of the size advantage over the NPHS, pounding it inside and getting to the line. If nothing transpired inside then the Athenians kicked it out to a wing who took a 3-point shot.

The Cougars only attempted nine shots in the quarter and made two of them. Also making six free throws, they scored 10 points but the senior trio of Hank Horner, PJ Schafer and Shad Conrad could not be stopped in the last quarter getting to the line frequently and making their free throws.

"We need to give Crawfordsville a lot of credit because they did a great job of finishing plays when they needed too," Haworth said.

The height finally got to the Cougars who gave up 11 offensive boards and were outrebounded by six and also were hindered by a relatively low shooting percent as a team only shooting 39 percent. The Athenians shot 53 percent from 2-point range.

"It was not really the tall guys getting the boards, it was the guards," Haworth said. "We talked about rebounding and knew that it was their biggest strength. More than anything else they do, if we let them hit the offensive boards then they were going to have a chance to win, and that's what we gave them."

The Cougars were led by seniors Shane Beaman and Bennett Hazelgrove with 13 points apiece, but in the waning moments of the game they both fouled out. Fellow-senior Jordan Nauert scored 12 and junior Brandon Hall rounded out the scoring with four points.

Despite losing the game the Cougars played good defense and forced 11 turnovers. They look forward to improving and getting better as a team to hopefully make an impact in postseason play.

"I thought our defense was phenomenal. I thought we rotated well and taking charges. Our defense was great, we forced a lot of tough shots we just need to finish the plays with rebounds," Haworth said.

North Putnam will play next when they host North Montgomery (2-5) on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Score by quarters:

JV: NP 25 C 55.