Cranes welcome the Mustangs to Keppel and send them home with a loss. Cranbrook 48 – Lutheran North 37

Cranes welcome the Mustangs to Keppel and send them home with a loss.

Cranbrook 48 – Lutheran North 37

 

Ask any coach and they will tell you that in order to be successful a team needs to play offense AND defense. Tuesday night, CK showed its defensive strength in defeating Lutheran North.

 

As the team entered the locker room for its pregame preparation, head coach Shane Finney pondered what he needed to do to get his group of ball players ready for the challenge that awaited him. What could be said to get his team focused on the task at hand.

 

The team surrounded their coach, awaiting his words of wisdom. Finney pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket, glanced down, mouthed the words silently, then looked up to see the eyeballs of his assembled athletes.

 

“Be Hard to Play Against, and Easy to Play With” Where did that one come from?

 

He could have called upon Casey Stengel who said “Most games are lost, not won.” Or, better yet, Vince Lombardi: “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”

 

Instead of sharing with the team the immortal words of Darrell Royal “The only place you can win a game is on the field, the only place you can lose it is in your hearts.” the Cranes got some gibberish about playing hard.

 

Well, for what its worth, it worked. The Cranes defense was never stronger than tonight. They showed toughness, drive, determination and commitment.

 

How else can you explain a first quarter score of 11 – 4. That’s right, after 8 minutes of play, the Mustangs could only put 4 points on the scoreboard, having shot 2 for 4 from the charity stripe and one 2 pointer.

 

Those of us in the stands witnessed a crushing CK defense that held Lutheran North scoreless for almost four full minutes (3:55 to be exact) before the first Lutheran North point was scored.

 

This same defense held the Mustangs scoreless for another 7 minutes, while they went on an eight-point run.

 

At the end of the second quarter, the Cranes enjoyed a 19-12 lead.

 

 

Coach Finney gathered his team back in the locker room. One can only imagine what he said to them. Did he exhort them to “ line up alphabetically by height.”

(as spoken by Bill Peterson) or maybe it was Duffy Daugherty’s comment that: “My only feeling about superstition is that it’s unlucky to be behind at the end of the game.”

 

This writer is more partial to something like the words of Patrick Hunt: “Basketball is not a democratic sport”. Perhaps Coach Finney left this thought with his troops, as first expressed by Weldon Drew: “We have a great bunch of outside shooters. Unfortunately, all our games are played indoors.”

 

Whatever it was, it seemed to work.

 

The Cranes stormed the court for the second half with energy, enthusiasm and commitment. They were focused with their eyes on the prize.

 

They lined up in their man to man defense and continued their assault on the Mustangs.

 

The CK defense held Lutheran North scoreless for another 2:15 before they dropped a long range three pointer

 

Offensively, five Cranes contributed – Sterling Morrow with 17 points including 2 three pointers, Jacob Hall dropping in 12 points, Jason Miller scoring nine points, Andrew McGlothin with 6 and batting cleanup, Jacob Chapman credited with 4 points.

 

Even one of the Cranbrook Kingswood’s Avid Sportsfans was heard to exclaim “AwRight“