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Clovers fade in second half, lose FFWVC opener
TERRE HAUTE – Cloverdale controlled the first half of Thursday’s game with Casey-Westfield in the First Financial Wabash Valley Classic at Terre Haute North, leading the Warriors 30-24 at intermission.
Thanks to a dominating performance on the boards, the Warriors poured in 24 points in each of the final two periods to record a 72-66 victory.
Cloverdale fell to 4-4 overall, and will meet potential sectional opponent Riverton Parke in the consolation bracket at 4 p.m. today.
The start of the game couldn’t have gone much better for the Clovers, who opened up a 10-4 lead early with no points coming (yet) from leading scorer Kyle Thomas.
Nolan Kelley had a pair of treys and Walker Sims had a pair of layups to give the Clovers that early six-point edge.
Thomas scored his team’s final seven points of the period on a basket, a trey and a pair of free throws as the Clovers led 17-9 at the first stop.
Casey-Westfield (now 9-2) began chipping away at the Clover lead throughout the second period.
A trey from Brady Koosman and a Thomas jumper put the Clovers up 22-11 for their biggest lead of the half with 6:35 to play in the second quarter.
The Warriors scored eight of the game’s next 10 points, though, and added the final five of the half to cut the gap to that six-point difference.
The third period didn’t start badly for the Clovers, who got the second of Koosman’s three treys on the day, five more points from Thomas and an “an one” from Chase Ashcraft to restore their lead to 41-34 with 4:25 left in the period.
Then, the bottom dropped out. Casey-Westfield began hitting shots, and whenever the Warriors missed they were able to scoop up the rebound.
The prime culprit was 6-foot-5 senior Caleb Patrick, who had 14 rebounds on the day and had four lethal putback hoops after getting offensive rebounds.
The Warriors ran off 14 straight points to assume a 48-41 lead.
Cloverdale’s Nolan Kelley hit a basket and a free throw in the final seconds of the period, but the tide had been turned.
“Rebounding has been our Achilles heel in all the games we’ve lost,” Cloverdale coach Patrick Rady said. “We have to have five guys banging. When you teach rebounding, you teach about making contact and ‘riding them out’, and we’re not ‘riding them out’ right now. We are satisfied with inside position, and the ball goes over our head or something and we don’t get it.”
Rady’s stat crew had the Warriors with 15 offensive rebounds on the day, which helped the Warriors to be able to attempt 10 more shots on the day than the Clovers.
“There were probably seven or eight possessions where something positive happened for them after offensive rebounds,” Rady said. “We’re going to play a team with size in Riverton Parke [today] and we’re going to have to do a better job against them.”
Casey-Westfield got the first five points of the final period on a putback basket by 6-foot-6 sophomore Jackson Hills and a trey from junior guard Noah Livingston – who led the Warriors with 22 points.
The Clovers then made their final run, getting seven straight points from three different players to cut the gap to 53-51.
The Warriors dominated the rest of the way, however, increasing their lead to as much as 68-58 before hanging on for the victory.
Thomas led the Clovers with 27 points and had eight rebounds from his guard position. He agreed with his coach on the reason for the defeat.
“We didn’t block out well, obviously,” he said. “We had a lot of miscues on the defensive end. As a team, we played well on offense but we just missed a lot of stuff on defense which we have been going over in practice but haven’t been carrying over to the game.”
The Clovers gradually accumulated foul problems, with Sims and Chase Ashcraft eventually fouling out, that worsened the rebounding issues even more. Both Hills and Patrick are taller than any Clover player, but Thomas does not think the problem was with physicality.
“It’s more mental at this point,” he said. “We are all feeling like we are together, then we get to the game and we spread out.”
Kelley finished with 19 points, but did not take more than three shots in any period until he attempted four in the final period.
“They definitely played good, tough defense on me,” he said. “It was hard to get open and stick to the plays. It was good, tough defense. I’m very confident we can make a run through the rest of the tournament.”
No other Clovers reached double figures, although Koosman (nine), Sims and Ashcraft (four each) and Mark Gill (three) added 20 points to the 46 scored by Thomas and Kelley.
Only five Warriors scored, but four were in double figures and Hills was close behind with nine.
The Clovers can take solace in that they lost their first game three years ago, in Cooper Neese’s senior year, and went on to win the consolation bracket championship.
CLOVERDALE (66) –Thomas 7-19 10-10 27, Kelley 6-12 3-4 19, Sims 2-4 0-0 4, Ashcraft 1-3 2-3 4, Koosman 3-3 0-0 9, Gill 1-1 1-2 3, Jones 0-1 0-0 0, Dickison 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 20-43 FG, 16-18 FT, 66 Tp
CASEY-WESTFIELD (72) – Livington 7-19 4-5 22, Hosselton 3-12 4-6 10, Dallape 4-7 6-6 16, Patrick 6-8 3-5 15, Hills 3-7 3-4 9, Branson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-53 FG, 20-25 FT, 72 TP
| Cloverdale | 17 | 13 | 14 | 22 | -- | 66 |
| Casey-Westfield | 9 | 15 | 24 | 24 | -- | 72 |
3-point shooting – Clovers 10-20 (Thomas 3-8, Kelley 4-7, Koosman 3-3, Jones 0-1, Ashcraft 0-1), Casey-Westfield 6-13 (Livington 4-8 Hosselton 0-2, Dallape 2-4). Turnovers – Cloverdale 9, Casey-Westfield 8.